Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

London Passenger Transport Board Bill,

As amended, to be considered Tomorrow.

Land Drainage Provisional Order (No. 1) Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE.

Mr. MANDER: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give a complete list of the British representatives on the various committees or sub-committees of the Disarmament Conference at the present time, whether Parliamentary or drawn from the Civil Service?

The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. Eden): A considerable number of committees and sub-committees have been set up by the Disarmament Conference in the course of its work. The British representation on some of these committees varies from meeting to meeting in accordance with the subject matter under discussion.

Mr. MANDER: In view of the fact that a complete list was published at the beginning of the Conference, is it not possible now to give the names of those who will be attending these four sub-committees?

Mr. EDEN: We are not now at the beginning of the Conference. If there is any particular information which the hon. Member wants, I will gladly try to get it for him.

Mr. MANDER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is intended
that Ministers themselves shall attend any of these sub-committees?

Mr. EDEN: They have attended some in the past. I cannot say about the future.

Oral Answers to Questions — DISPUTANT STATES (FOREIGN RECRUITMENT).

Mr. MANDER: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will consider the advisability of proposing to the Council of the League of Nations that a general agreement should be entered into by all States prohibiting the recruitment of their nationals in the armies, navies, and air forces of States involved in a dispute under the consideration of the League Council, either for training or fighting purposes?

Mr. EDEN: The suggestion put forward by the hon. Member is open to serious objections, and my right hon. Friend does not therefore feel able to put it forward.

Mr. MANDER: Is it not just as important to regulate the export of trained personnel as of arms?

Mr. EDEN: There are many objections, and I can give the hon. Member one. It is not wise to do anything that might discourage nations in dispute from referring the matter to the Council.

Mr. MACUISTEN: If there are a certain number of individuals who have a conscientious satisfaction in engaging in fighting, should not they have the same privileges as those who have a conscientious objection to it?

Oral Answers to Questions — EX-NAVAL MEN (COLOMBIAN ENGAGEMENT).

Mr. MANDER: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information as to the duties, in addition to navigating the vessels out to Colombia, to be performed during their two years' contract by the 185 British ex-officers and naval ratings recently engaged by the Colombian Government; whether a copy of the contract has been seen by him and is now available; and if it is the policy of the Government to give equal facilities and encouragement
for British subjects to join the armies, navies, and air forces of other South American republics, including Peru?

Mr. EDEN: Information as to the contracts with these persons has been given by my right hon. Friend, the First Lord of the Admiralty, in the course of the Debate on the 30th May and by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, in reply to a question put by the hon. Member on the 5th June, and to these statements I have nothing to add. Neither His Majesty's Government nor any British Government Department is a party to these contracts. My right hon. Friend does not therefore feel it incumbent upon him to seek the permission of the interested parties to their publication, but the hon. Member may assume that the information already given to him regarding them is correct. As no special facilities or encouragement were given by His Majesty's Government in connection with the engagement of these British subjects, the last part of this question does not arise.

Mr. MANDER: Is it not a fact that permission was given for over 100 men to enlist in the Colombian Navy, and can it be assumed that equal facilities will be given to all States in similar circumstances?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is it not very satisfactory that a number of our military and naval personnel should have been able to find jobs abroad?

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

ITALIAN PORTS (VISITING WARSHIPS).

Captain CUNNINGHAM - REID: 5.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has received any official information regarding the new regulations governing the admission of foreign war ships to Italian ports in time of peace; whether such regulations will involve any change in the normal programme of the Mediterranean Fleet: and whether he has requested the Foreign Office to make any representations in this matter?

The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Sir Bolton Eyres Monsell): The new regulations recently issued by the Italian Government differ only in minor points of detail from those previously in force,
and will not involve any change in the normal programme of the Mediterranean Fleet. The last part of the question does not therefore arise.

DARTMOUTH CADETS (EYESIGHT).

Mr. SAVERY: 6.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of cadets who, during the last three years, have been compelled to withdraw from Dartmouth Naval College on account of defective vision?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: During the last three years, seven cadets have been required to withdraw from the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, on account of defects of vision. Of these, one had been offered a transfer to the Engineering Branch and five to the Accountant Branch, but these transfers had been declined. The seventh was unfit for service in any branch.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Would those regulations have disqualified Lord Nelson, who I believe was defective in vision?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: He was not at Dartmouth.

CONSTRUCTION COST.

Mr. RALPH BEAUMONT: 8.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the cost per ton of the ships due for completion in 1933 and 1934 and the cost per ton of pre-War ships, respectively; and if there are any factors tending to increase the cost per ton at the present day in comparison with pre-War times?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: The estimated cost per standard ton of the ships due for completion in 1933–34 is £216. The cost per standard ton of pre-War vessels of the same types and displacements was £115. There are many factors which have increased the cost of naval construction since 1914. Wages are higher, working hours are shorter, the cost of materials is considerably greater, and ships and their equipment are very much more complex. In view of these factors, the increase in cost per ton is certainly not greater than would have been expected.

Mr. BEAUMONT: Has the attention of my right hon. Friend been drawn to an article in the Press giving these figures as £244 and £50, respectively?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: Yes, Sir, and the conclusion that article drew was that the increase was 390 per cent.; in fact, it is 90 per cent.

NAVAL ARMAMENTS (CONVERSATIONS).

Sir CHARLES CAYZER: 7.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the decision of the Italian Government to lay down immediately two 35,000 ton capital ships; and whether, in view of the fact that this decision of the Italian Government is likely to preclude the possibility of the Naval Conference next year agreeing to reduce the size of capital ships below the present maximum permitted tonnage, he proposes to make friendly inquiries of the Italian Government with a view to ascertaining whether it will be possible for the Italian Government to postpone its decision pending a consideration of this question by the Naval Conference?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regard the second part, the whole subject of future naval limitation in connection with the 1935 Conference is under the close consideration of His Majesty's Government, and invitations have recently been issued to the four other countries signatories of the Washington and London Naval Treaties to take part in preliminary bilateral conversations in the near future. All relevant technical questions will, it is hoped, be discussed in these conversations.

STRAITS SETTLEMENT (MUI-TSAI SYSTEM).

Captain CUNNINGHAM - REID: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of mui-tsai registered in the Straits Settlements on the last convenient date; whether the number during the last 20 years has increased proportionately to the increase of the Chinese population in this colony; and whether there is any substantial difference in the regulations governing the treatment of mui-tsai in the Straits Settlements and in Hong Kong?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister): The number of mui-tsai registered in the Straits Settlements on the 30th of September last was 1,479. No record exists of the number at any date before the system of registration was introduced last year. As regards the last part of the question, the regulations governing the treatment of mui-tsai in the Straits Settlements are based on those of Hong Kong.

GIBRALTAR (POSTAL FACILITIES).

Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make representations in the proper quarter to obtain the erection of an automatic machine outside the General Post Office at Gibraltar for the delivery of postage stamps, as this would be appreciated by many tourists who land at a time when the post office is closed?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I will forward my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion to the Governor, who, I am sure, will give it his consideration.

CEYLON (TRADE UNIONS).

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will state the general character of the Bill proposed for the registration of trade unions in Ceylon; and whether organisations of workers which have not been able to comply with the proposed conditions of registration will be declared illegal?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The Bill in question has been referred to a Standing Committee of the State Council. I am not yet in possession of details of the Bill on which, so far as I am aware, the committee has not yet reported.

Mr. GRENFELL: Has the right hon. Gentleman been made aware of protests by workers in Ceylon against this new Bill?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: No. I think that under the Ceylon constitution the Bill is presented to the State Council and referred to the appropriate committee.

AVIATION.

RADIO BEACON, CROYDON.

Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: 14.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what representations had been received by the Air Ministry as to danger to aircraft from the height and position of the radio beacon at Croydon airport before the recent accident caused by an aircraft colliding with it; by whom and on what date such representations took place; what action, if any, was taken as a result; and if any further action is now contemplated as a result of the accident?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): My hon. and gallant Friend was good enough to postpone his question at my request, and I have in the meantime had occasion to reply to a similar question on the same subject on Monday. My reply was, briefly, to the effect that following on representations made in October last the whole matter was very fully discussed with all concerned, and certain technical investigations put in hand. I may add that the orders have now been issued for the immediate reduction of the height of the beacon to a maximum of 35 feet. Work has been begun to-day.

Captain BALFOUR: May I take it that even if this accident had not happened, the present action would have been taken by the right hon. Gentleman's Department?

Sir P. SASSOON: Certainly, we had decided it would be taken.

Mr. SIMMONDS: May I ask whether there have been any similar representations about Air Ministry aerodromes which have not yet been dealt with?

Sir P. SASSOON: I must have notice of that question.

NAVIGATION RISKS (PYLONS AND CABLES).

Captain BALFOUR: 15.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he is now in a position to make a statement regarding steps to be taken to reduce danger to aircraft from overhead electric pylons and cables as the result of joint consideration by the Air Ministry and Electricity Commissioners?

Sir P. SASSOON: There is nothing that I can usefully add as yet to my reply
of 18th April last and to my letter referred to therein, in which I explained the complexities of the problem. But the investigations and lighting experiments are proceeding.

Captain BALFOUR: In view of the continuance of this danger, if I put this question down again in one month's time—postponing it again as I have done at the request of the right hon. Gentleman this time—will he then be able to give me a specific answer?

Sir P. SASSOON: I shall be able to give my hon. and gallant Friend all the information in my possession.

Captain BALFOUR: Will the right hon. Gentleman take all steps to speed up action before an accident occurs?

Sir P. SASSOON: We are doing all that we can.

NIGHT-FLYING POSTAL SERVICES.

Lieut.-Colonel GAULT: 16.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he will consider inaugurating night-flying postal services in order that our inter-imperial communications may be speeded up?

Sir P. SASSOON: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply which I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Duddeston (Mr. Simmonds) on 16th May last, and to which I have nothing to add. As I then stated, the matter is primarily one for the operating companies.

Lieut.-Colonel GAULT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the amount of night flying carried on by other countries, particularly by Germany; and does he not think it important that we should retain our position in that as in all other respects relating to the air?

Sir P. SASSOON: We are watching all the circumstances.

Mr. SIMMONDS: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, while he says this is the responsibility of the Post Office, the Postmaster-General says that it is the right hon. Gentleman's responsibility; and can the right hon. Gentleman give us any idea of when this little family dispute will be settled?

Sir P. SASSOON: I said it was a matter for the operating companies.

AIR SERVICES (FAR EAST).

Lieut.-Colonel GAULT: 17.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if his attention has been drawn to the large number of Britishers travelling to and from the East by the K. L. M. line instead of by Imperial Airways; whether this is due to a better and faster service provided by the K. L. M. Company or to insufficient accommodation provided by Imperial Airways; and if he will take steps to see that our imperial air-lines are so developed in speed and service as to attract the bulk of the travelling public?

Sir P. SASSOON: I have no information to confirm the suggestion contained in the first part of my hon. and gallant Friend's question, and I would not in any case subscribe to the possibilities suggested in the second part.

ROYAL AIR FORCE (ANTI-GAS PROTECTION).

Captain CUNNINGHAM - REID: 18.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air, in view of the present practicability of attacking aeroplanes being met by clouds of poison gas, what steps he is taking to provide anti-gas protection and training for Royal Air Force personnel likely to be engaged in attacks in the event of hostilities?

Sir P. SASSOON: It would not be in the public interest to deal with questions of this kind across the Floor of the House.

TRANSPORT.

BRIDGES.

Mr. JOHN RUTHERFORD: 19 and 20.
asked the Minister of Transport (1) the total number of hump-backed bridges there are on main roads in this country; before how many there are warning signs; and whether any systematic reduction of these bridges is being made; and
(2) how many hump-backed bridges there are on Watling Street?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Oliver Stanley): I am not in possession of the information the hon. Member desires and much time and labour would be entailed in obtaining it, but I have authorised a special
warning sign for hump-backed bridges and it is extensively used. Highway authorities are reconstructing bridges of this type or improving their approaches, as opportunity offers and their resources permit, and I am prepared to give consideration to all applications for grants for this purpose which may be submitted to me.

Mr. PIKE: Can the Minister hurry on the scheme for the elimination of these bridges?

Mr. STANLEY: I have just said that I am prepared to consider all applications.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Are not these bridges a useful check to speed?

Mr. STANLEY: So it would be if there were no bridges at all.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is the Minister prepared to reconsider the position regarding the Forth Bridge?

Mr. STANLEY: My answer was that I was prepared to give consideration to all applications for grants for this purpose—that is the reconstruction of humpbacked bridges.

MOTOR-OMNIBUS SERVICES (ABERDEEN).

Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY: 21.
asked the Minister of Transport if he is aware of the unnecessary duplication of motor-omnibus services which exists on the Aberdeen-Deeside and Aberdeen-Donside routes; and whether, in view of the fact that the local omnibuses can deal adequately with the traffic, he will take steps to secure the withdrawal of Alexander's omnibuses from the services to Upper Deeside and Upper Donside?

Mr. STANLEY: The licensing of road passenger services is a matter for the Traffic Commissioners set up under the Road Traffic Act, 1930, and I have no power to intervene except on an appeal by a person so entitled under Section 81 of that Act.

Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY: Is any record kept of the number of people using these omnibuses?

ROAD SURFACES.

Sir GIFFORD FOX: 22.
asked the Minister of Transport what progress has been made during the past year with the testing of road surfaces in order to ascer-
tain the best type for the prevention of skidding; and by what date he anticipates research will have been sufficiently advanced to enable him to oblige all highway authorities to use such surfaces on Class I roads?

Mr. STANLEY: Continuous study has been given during the past year to the behaviour of a number of trial lengths laid to different specifications in order to determine, among other things, their non-skid properties, and an account of this work will shortly be published. I cannot forecast the progress of research, but my Department consistently presses on highway authorities the importance of using only such materials as are likely to give non-slippery surfaces, and marked progress has been made in this direction.

Mr. THORNE: Has the Minister received any report from the local authorities about the diamond-cut iron plates put down on the roads?

Mr. STANLEY: If the hon. Member will put a question down, I will give him any information that I can.

RAILWAY STATISTICS.

Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY: 23.
asked the Minister of Transport the cost to the Ministry of Transport and to the railway companies, respectively, of compiling the statistics relating to railway traffics which usually appear four months after the period to which they relate; how many copies of these statistics are sold; and what purpose they serve?

Mr. STANLEY: I assume that my hon. Friend refers to the publication entitled "Railway Statistics." This document is issued monthly, usually about 10 weeks after the period to which it relates. I have no information as to the cost incurred by the railway companies, but I have no doubt that the bulk of the information contained in the returns would, in any event, be compiled by the companies for their own purposes. The cost incurred by my Department in the compilation of these statistics is estimated to be approximately £1,200 a year. This figure does not include printing. The average number of copies sold monthly is 250. The statistics in question are compiled by the railway companies and rendered to me in compliance with Section 77 of the Railways Act, 1921. The
returns are reviewed and have been modified from time to time by agreement with the railway companies with the object of securing economy, and I am satisfied that their continued publication serves a useful purpose from the point of view of the railway companies themselves and of the various bodies who are concerned with railway traffics and charges and with the economic and efficient management of the railways.

TAXIMETER CABS.

Sir G. FOX: 39.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps his Department is taking to bring to the notice of taximeter cab users the desirability of taking taximeter cabs off the ranks rather than engaging crawling taximeter cabs, since such a preference would tend to reduce the congestion in the streets caused by numbers of these vehicles cruising about in the hope of picking up passengers?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): I have no doubt that the public could materially assist the general circulation of traffic by making a practice of hiring their cabs from the ranks whenever possible. Attention was called to this matter in the report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for last year, and I hope that this question and answer will give further publicity to the subject.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Are not taximeter cabs crawling about the streets a great convenience to the public?

SCOTLAND.

ELECTRICITY CHARGES (CLYDE AREA).

Mr. KIRKWOOD: 24.
asked the Minister of Transport if he is aware of the dissatisfaction among electricity consumers in the Clyde area at the higher charges of the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company in comparison with the charges of the Glasgow municipal electricity services; will he order a public inquiry with a view to having the company's charges reduced to the same level as the municipal service; and, further, in view of the Glasgow housing committee's official Report, showing that householders supplied by the company have to pay 27s. to almost £3 per annum more than householders on the municipal
service for the same supply, will he consider takings steps to bring the whole of the electricity supply in the area under municipal control?

Mr. STANLEY: I have recently received a petition from certain residents in Springboig stating that the charges made by the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company in that district are greater than those obtaining in the area of supply of the Glasgow Corporation, and asking that the former charges should be arranged on a more equitable basis. The petition is receiving consideration.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: May I have a reply to the last part of the question, and will the Minister consider taking steps to bring the whole of the electricity supply in the area under municipal control?

Mr. STANLEY: I only received this petition on 8th June, and I am certainly not in a position to give a definite reply as to what action I propose to take on it.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: If I put a question down for a later date, will the hon. Gentleman be in a position to give a reply on this matter, because 5,000 or 6,000 people are very anxious to come under municipal control in Glasgow?

Mr. STANLEY: Without attempting to give a reply to the hon. Gentleman's question at this moment, I can assure him that there will be no unavoidable delay.

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

Mr. GUY: 26.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if his attention has been directed to a deliverance approved by the Church of Scotland in General Assembly calling upon His Majesty's Government to institute an inquiry into the whole question of Sunday trading; and if he will agree to setting up such an inquiry?

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir Godfrey Collins): I have not received any communication from the Church of Scotland on the matter referred to, but I have seen a Press report to the effect that the General Assembly agreed that overtures from certain presbyteries on the subject of Sunday observance generally should be received and sent to the Church and Nation Committee for consideration and
report. As stated in the reply which I gave to a question by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. D. Mason) on 20th March last, I am not satisfied that an inquiry of the nature suggested would be justified at the present time.

Mr. GUY: Is the Minister not aware that a motion proposed in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in favour of an inquiry was carried unanimously?

Sir G. COLLINS: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the question of Sunday observance was submitted to the Church and Nation Committee for consideration, and no doubt there will be a report to the Assembly.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is there not a long series of Statutes regarding Sunday observance which ought to be in the report?

Mr. DAVID MASON: Can the Minister inform the House what his idea is of satisfaction, and can he give us some guidance as to how he will be satisfied?

Mr. SPEAKER: This is not the time for giving guidance.

MILK PRICES, GLASGOW.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: 27 and 36.
asked (1) the Secretary of State for Scotland what contract was signed by the Glasgow milk retailers who have been refused supplies by the Milk Board because they sold standard milk to working-class consumers at cheap rates; and, if no contracts were signed by these retailers, why are they prohibited from selling milk at the lowest possible price to consumers; and
(2) the Lord Advocate if he is aware that seven milk retailers in Glasgow have been refused supplies by the Milk Marketing Board because they were selling at reduced prices; and will he state under what Act of Parliament the Scottish Milk Marketing Board is entitled to refuse supplies to these retailers and threaten them with economic boycott unless they agree to increase their prices?

Sir G. COLLINS: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to his question on 6th June. Under the contract entered into between distributors and the Scottish Milk Marketing Board it is provided that all buyers of milk from or through the agency of the board shall
undertake to observe the prices fixed by the board and to take sub-purchasers bound in a similar obligation. The retailers referred to are sub-purchasers in terms of the contract.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: What Act of Parliament enables them to stop the supply of milk to those retailers who are supplying milk cheap to the poor people of Glasgow?

Sir G. COLLINS: As the hon. Gentleman knows, these boards are set up by the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, and the terms of the contract entered into between the board and the distributors are well within the four corners of that Act.

HOSPITALS, BLACKHEATH (LIGHTING FAILURE).

Mr. THORNE: 25.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he has received a report from his inspectors relative to the inconvenience caused to the hospitals in the Blackheath area when the electric light supply failed for a number of hours on Sunday night; if he is aware that the hospitals had no electric light supply for three hours; and if he can state the cause of the breakdown?

Mr. STANLEY: I am informed that the breakdown was due to a fault on an old distributor which had been in service for many years, that the principal inconvenience was suffered by the Herbert Hospital, and that the hospital has now been connected to a new ring main which the company were laying to provide additional security of supply and which was on the point of completion when the breakdown occurred.

Mr. THORNE: Does the Minister not see the advantage of having gas installed in these institutions as well as electric light?

Lieut.-Colonel SANOEMAN ALLEN: Had the hon. Member for Plaistow (Mr. Thorne) the same solicitude for the hospitals in 1926?

NORFOLK RURAL DISTRICTS (REVISION).

Mr. THOMAS COOK: 28.
asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that
the proposed revision of boundaries within the county of Norfolk, if put into effect, will result in the extinction of the rural district council of Aylsham, and that in this event representatives will have difficulty in performing their administrative duties by attending meeting in new places; and will he discuss the matter further with the authority concerned?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): The County Council of Norfolk, after reviewing the county districts, put forward to my right hon. Friend proposals which included the abolition of the Aylsham rural district and the division of the area between the adjoining rural districts. It was part of their scheme for reducing the number of rural districts in the county. A public inquiry into the county council's proposals was held by one of the inspectors of my Department, and the proposal affecting the Aylsham rural district was fully investigated. After considering the inspector's report and the representations that were made, my right hon. Friend decided to approve the county council's proposal. The decision was issued on the 31st ultimo. He can assure my hon. Friend that all the circumstances were fully considered.

SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1922 (LOCAL AUTHORITIES).

Mr. POTTER: 29.
asked the Minister of Health the number of local authorities in England and Wales who have adopted the provisions of the Superannuation Act, 1922, in respect of both trading and non-trading departments; and the number of persons now receiving superannuation under this voluntary scheme?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: The Superannuation Act of 1922 does not make any distinction between trading and non-trading departments, and the particulars submitted to my right hon. Friend are not required to be so distinguished. He is not able, therefore, to furnish the information.

INDIA (LOSS OF STEAM LAUNCH "MANOUNG").

Mr. OSWALD LEWIS: 30.
asked the Secretary of State for India if he will
cause inquiry to be made into the circumstances under which the steam launch "Manoung," on the ferry service between the Risalpur River and Saugor Island, sank in a squall recently; and, in particular, as to whether there were on board more passengers than this launch was licensed to carry?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Butler): Yes, Sir, I will ask the Government of India for a report.

BECHUANALAND (MALARIA OUTBREAK).

Mr. LUNN: 31.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can give any information on the outbreak of malaria in Bechuanaland; whether he is aware that at Ghanzi there have been 250 deaths following a period of starvation; and what measures His Majesty's Government is taking?

The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. J. H. Thomas): I regret to say that there has been an outbreak of malaria in certain districts of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. I have not yet received any detailed reports from the High Commissioner for South Africa as to mortality, but I have no doubt that these will be forthcoming as soon as the information is available. Prompt measures have been taken by the local administration to deal with the outbreak by sending medical officers and the necessary supplies of quinine to districts affected. I may add that provision was made last year, and has again been made this year, for the relief of distress unfortunately occasioned in the Protectorate by the late disastrous drought in South Africa.

POST OFFICE (ROBBERIES).

Sir G. FOX: 32.
asked the Postmaster-General what was the number of postal robberies during 1933 and the first five months of 1934, respectively; how many of these were carried out during the transit of mail by railway trains or at railway stations; what are the total losses involved; and whether any new steps are contemplated to cope with mail robberies in mail vans on trains?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Ernest Bennett): During the year 1933, mail bags were stolen or tampered with in course of transit on 49 occasions. On 48 of these occasions the loss is believed to have occurred on the railway. The corresponding figures for the first five months of this year are 22 and 20 respectively. It is not possible to state the total loss involved, as there is no record of the value of the contents of letters carried; but in the great majority of cases the loss seems to have been trifling. Very close attention is being given to measures for the prevention of such losses; and the recent convictions of mail bag thieves will doubtless act as a useful deterrent.

Sir G. FOX: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of keeping these postal packages in mail vans separate from other luggage, because thieves seem to get into large orates in the vans, and then let themselves out and steal mail bags?

Sir E. BENNETT: That matter is under consideration.

Mr. PIKE: Would the use of the air service prevent these robberies?

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: 34.
asked the Attorney-General whether his attention has been called to a book entitled "Holy Deadlock" wherein His Majesty's judges and courts, and the legal code which they administer in matrimonial causes, are held up to public ridicule and contempt; and whether it is proposed to take any action in the matter?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip): The book in question is a work of fiction, and is not such as to require any action on my part.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is not the state of affairs disclosed in that book pretty much what is happening in the courts just now? Is not that notorious?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: No, Sir.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is it not the case that our matrimonial code is based on a pre-Reformation standard of a celibate clergy? Why do the English not have the Scottish matrimonial law, which is much more sensible?

TITHE RENTOHARGE (ROYAL COMMISSION).

Mr. RICHARD EVANS: 35.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is yet in a position to state the terms of reference and the composition of the proposed Royal Commission on tithes; whether the special circumstances of Welsh tithe payers will he a subject of inquiry; and whether Wales will be directly represented on the personnel of the commission?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): The terms of reference of the Royal Commission will be:
To inquire into and report upon the whole question of tithe rentcharge in England and Wales and its incidence, with special reference to stabilised value, statutory remission, powers of recovery, and method and terms of redemption.
I am not yet in a position to make a statement with regard to the constitution and personnel of the commission. With regard to the last part of the question, I do not think it would be desirable to have direct representation of interests on the commission, but the hon. Member's suggestion will be borne in mind.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a tendency now to ignore altogether the national claims of the Principality?

Mr. ELLIOT: I will keep the hon. Gentleman's representations in mind.

Viscount ELMLEY: Will my right hon. Friend do everything he can to speed up this inquiry?

Mr. ELLIOT: Naturally, the Royal Commission must be the judges of that. I am afraid it will take a certain amount of time.

MINISTRY OF PENSIONS HOSPITALS (BUTTER AND MARGARINE).

Mr. HAMER RUSSELL: 37.
asked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that margarine is issued normally to all patients in the Ministry of Pensions hospitals; and if, having regard to the surplus milk in the country, he will issue instructions for butter to be used in place of margarine?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): Butter is always supplied to patients in Ministry hospitals if medically
recommended, but otherwise the practice in Ministry hospitals has in the past followed that of the majority of similar institutions. But I am going into this matter with a view to making a change.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is the Minister aware that certain qualities of margarine have the same qualities as cod liver oil, and are much better for patients than ordinary butter?

LICENSED HOURS (SUMMER TIME).

Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: 38.
asked the Home Secretary if he can supply a list of licensing districts which have granted extensions to 10.30 p.m., showing those granted for the whole year and those granted for a lesser period, to wit, summer time, respectively?

Sir J. GILMOUR: According to the latest available information, the list asked for would include the names of nearly 200 individual districts. I shall be glad to send the hon. and learned Member the detailed particulars if he so desires.

Mr. KNIGHT: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his offer, may I ask him if he is aware that many members of the public would find it convenient to be informed where these facilities are available?

Mr. PIKE: Can the Home Secretary say if the increase in these facilities has led to an increase in the figures of drunkenness?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Not without notice.

BRITISH UNION OF FASCISTS.

Mr. BERNAYS: 40.
asked the Home Secretary the number of men and women injured at meetings organised by the Fascists or at disturbances arising there-from in 1932, 1933, and to the nearest convenient date in 1934?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I am only in a position to give particulars in respect of the Metropolitan Police District. The Commissioner of Police informs me that, so far as the police are aware, no person was injured at Fascist meetings during 1932. During 1933, 10 persons (nine males and one female) and, during 1934, up to the 11th instant about 45 men and three women are known to the police to have received injuries at Fascist meetings.

Mr. THORNE: 41.
asked the Home Secretary whether he has received a report from the Commissioner of Police in connection with Fascist meetings held on Saturday night, 9th June, and Sunday night, 10th June, at Hackney, Finsbury Park, Regent's Park, Woolwich, Notting Dale, Tottenham, and Wood Green; how many people were injured and how many people were locked up; and whether he intends taking further action in the matter?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Yes, Sir; I have obtained reports from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis regarding the meetings referred to. There were minor disturbances at some of these meetings. The total number of persons known to the police to have been injured is five, and eight arrests were made. No further action in regard to these meetings is called for, but I hope to say something further on the subject generally in the course of the Debate to-morrow.

Mr. THORNE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, in that report, the inspector reported the fact that a casualty van was in Finsbury Park and operations were being directed from the top of the van by one of the Fascist officers?

Mr. PIKE: Was it not for the purpose of carrying away mad Socialists?

Mr. HARTLAND: 42.
asked the Home Secretary what information is in the hands of the police as to weapons of any sort being used in the recent disturbances at a Fascist meeting at Olympia; and whether they were used wholly or in the main by the disturbers or the holders of the meeting?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Three of the persons arrested by the police were found on being searched to be in possession of offensive weapons, namely, a wooden truncheon, a pair of cutting pliers and an iron bolt. The police cannot say whether these weapons were used during the disturbance.

Mr. HARTLAND: Is it not possible to make sure whether any Blackshirt was possessed of these weapons, or whether they were in the possession of people with no shirts or with shirts of no distinctive colour?

Sir J. GILMOUR: It is not always easy to know which is which.

Major BEAUMONT THOMAS: Is the Home Secretary aware that these disturbances only occur when followers of the party opposite attend these meetings with the avowed intention of breaking them up?

Mr. HARTLAND: 43.
asked the Home Secretary, seeing that the trouble at the recent Fascist meeting at Olympia was due to organised determination to break up a lawful assembly and was caused by those in opposition to the right of free speech, and that no Government meeting can now be peacefully carried on in any Socialist centre of activity, the Government will now take steps for the maintenance of free speech?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I understand that it is the general desire that this question should be debated to-morrow, and I think it will be better to reserve any statement until then.

Mr. PIKE: Can the Home Secretary say what steps, if any, are being taken to ensure the right of free speech at the meeting to be addressed by the Prime Minister at Seaham to-morrow?

Mr. HARTLAND: 44.
asked the Home Secretary if he has any information to show whether the so-called Blackshirts have unduly interfered with, or attempted to break up, any meetings by declared intention, by deliberate organisation, or otherwise; and, if so, where?

Sir J. GILMOUR: It has not been possible in the time available to obtain information as regards any such incidents in respect of the country generally. So far as London is concerned I have received a report from the Commissioner of Police of one occasion on the 24th May last in which it appeared that a party of Fascists attempted to break up a meeting held at Kilburn under the auspices of the British Anti-War Movement. There was also another incident on the 24th November, 1933, when the British Union of Fascists broke up a meeting of the Imperial Fascists at Trinity Hall, Portland Place.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir ARNOLD WILSON: 45.
asked the Home Secretary if he can furnish a statement showing how many persons have been admitted to hospitals in the London area in connection with Blackshirt meetings during the present month; and whether any of them
were suffering from injuries alleged to have been received at the hands of Black-shirts; and, if so, how many?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The Commissioner of Police informs me that the only information which he has of persons admitted to hospital suffering from in-, juries in connection with Fascist meetings during June are those arising out of the recent meeting at Olympia. In addition to the 10 persons treated at hospitals in the vicinity of Olympia, the Commissioner is informed that two women received treatment at St. George's Hospital. It is not known by whom these injuries were inflicted.

Name.
Charge.
Result.


Peter Tripp (35)
…
(1) Obstructing Police
…
20s. or 7 days.




(2) Insulting words
…
10s. or 7 days.


Henry J. Clark (23)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Remanded until 14th June, 1934.




(2) Assault on Police
…



Bartlett Becow (24)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
20s. or 14 days.




(2) Obstructing Police
…
40s. or 14 days.




(3) Offensive weapon
…
One month's hard labour.


Charles J. Piper (21)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
10s. or 7 days.




(2) Obstructing Police
…
40s. or 14 days.




(3) Offensive weapon
…
Discharged S. J. Act.


Michael Fenbloom (23)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
20s. or 7 days.




(2) Obstructing Police
…
£3 or 14 days.


Thomas Day (28)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Remanded until 14th June, 1934.




(2) Obstructing Police
…



Jack Carson (29)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
20s. or 7 days.




(2) Obstructing Police
…
£3 or 14 days.


William Howard (26)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
20s. or 7 days.




(2) Obstructing Police
…
20s. or 7 days.




(3) Wilful damage
…
15s. costs.


Minnie Grizzell (42)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Dismissed S. J. Act.


Fred Santy (18)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Remanded until 16th June, 1934.




(2) Offensive weapon
…



Roy Webber (28)
…
(1) Drunk and disorderly
…
10s.


Charles Jaquest
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Remanded until 14th June, 1934.




(2) Assault on Police
…



Charles V. Jackson (27)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Discharged S. J. Act.




(2) Obstructing Police
…
20s.


James V. Jefferys (20)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
10s. or 5 days.




(2) Obstructing Police
…
40s. or 10 days.


Spencer T. Hattemore (17)
…
(1) Obstructing Police
…
15s. or 5 days.


Henry Palmer (39)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Dismissed.




(2) Disorderly conduct
…
Bound over 20s. for 12 months.


Gwilliam Evans (23)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Dismissed.




(2) Disorderly conduct
…
Bound over 20s. for 12 months.


Ernest Wood (29)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Remanded until 14th June, 1934.


Nellie Tuck (17)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Dismissed S. J. Act.




(2) Assaulting a female Fascist
10s.


Charles Trewick
…
(1) Wilful damage to Omnibus
Remanded until 14th June, 1934.


Morris Connor (21)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
Remanded until 14th June, 1934.


Clifford T. Bolton (25)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
10s.


Alfred W. Goddard (27)
…
(1) Insulting words
…
10s.

Sir A. WILSON: 46.
asked the Home Secretary if he can furnish a statement showing how many persons have been charged by the police in connection with disturbances relating to Blackshirt meetings in London during the present month, together with their names and their countries of origin, the nature of the offence, and the punishment, if any, awarded; and whether any of them were Blackshirts, and, if so, how many?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The number of persons charged is 36, of whom five are known to be Fascists. They are all British subjects. I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement containing the other particulars asked for.

Following is the statement:

Name.
Charge.
Result.


Harold J. Morris
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
Discharged S. J. Act.


Hugh Whitehall
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
20s.


Leslie W. M. Yeovil
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
Discharged S. J. Act.


Arthur G. Austin
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
20s.


Alfred Nash
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
40s.


Mishael Goldberg
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
Remanded to 13th June, 1934.





(2) Assaulting two private persons.



Morris J. Saposnick
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
40s.


Hyman Aarons
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
Remanded to 15th June, 1934.


Barnet Rigrotsky
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
40s.





(2) Assault on Police
…
…
14 days' imprisonment.


Sidney Stanley
…
…
(1) Throwing missiles
…
…
Remanded to 15th June, 1934.


John Park
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
Remanded to 16th June, 1934.


John Jones
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
Remanded to 16th June, 1934.


Victor Knight
…
…
(1) Insulting words
…
…
Remanded to 16th June, 1934.

Sir A. WILSON: 41.
asked the Home Secretary if he will introduce legislation to extend the Firearms Acts to the carrying or being in possession of knuckledusters, loaded sticks, mounted razor-blades, or similar lethal weapons?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I would refer to the reply which I gave to a somewhat similar question by the hon. and gallant Member for the Handsworth Division (Commander O. Locker-Lampson) on 26th February last.

Mr. THORNE: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been drawn to the different treatment meted out to Fascists who have been pinched and others who have been pinched?

NORWAY (BRITISH TRAWLERS).

Brigadier-General NATION (for Mr. LAW): 4.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what reply has been received from the Norwegian Government to the representations made by His Majesty's Government regarding the molestation of British shipping off the coast of Norway?

Mr. EDEN: An interim reply has been received from the Norwegian Government stating that an explanation has

been requested from the competent authorities and that, should it prove that British trawlers have been subjected to unwarrantable interference, the Norwegian Government are fully prepared to make good the wrong.

KENYA (FINANCE COMMITTEE).

Mr. CHARLES BROWN (for Mr. BANFIELD): 12.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give any information as to the setting up in Kenya Colony of a standing finance committee; what powers will be given to this committee; and what safeguards of native interests will be taken?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: According to the latest information available, neither the personnel nor the functions of this committee have yet been decided.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided: Ayes, 308; Noes, 47.

Division No. 283.]
AYES.
[3.24 p.m.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.
Banks, Sir Reginald Mitchell


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Aske, Sir Robert William
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.


Ainsworth, Lieut.-Colonel Charles
Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick Wolfe
Barrle, Sir Charles Coupar


Albery, Irving James
Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)
Atholl, Duchess of
Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell


Allen, William (Stoke-on-Trent)
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Belt, Sir Alfred L.


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Bennett, Capt. Sir Ernest Nathaniel


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Bernays, Robert


Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.
Gulnness, Thomas L. E. B.
Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)


Blindell, James
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Nicholson, Rt. Hn. W. G. (Petersf'ld)


Boothby, Robert John Graham
Guy, J. C. Morrison
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid


Borodale, Viscount
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Nunn, William


Bossom, A. C.
Hales, Harold K.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Boulton, W. W.
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Palmer, Francis Noel


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Hammersley, Samuel S.
Patrick, Colin M.


Boyd-Carpenter, Sir Archibald
Hanbury, Cecil
Peake, Captain Osbert


Brass, Captain Sir William
Hannon. Patrick Joseph Henry
Pearson, William G.


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Hartland, George A.
Peat, Charles U.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Perkins, Walter R. D.


Browne, Captain A. C.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Petherick, M.


Buchan, John
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, B'nstaple)


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsf'd)
Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bilston)


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Pike, Cecil F.


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Potter, John


Burnett, John George
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.


Burton, Colonel Henry Walter
Hornby, Frank
Power, Sir John Cecil


Butler, Richard Austen
Horobin, Ian M.
Pownall, Sir Assheton


Butt, Sir Alfred
Horsbrugh, Florence
Procter, Major Henry Adam


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Purbrick, R.


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Pybus, Sir Percy John


Carver, Major William H.
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Radford, E. A.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Hume, Sir George Hopwood
Raikes, Henry V. A. M.


Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Gazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh
Hurd, Sir Percy
Ramsbotham, Herwald


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A. (Blrm., W)
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Ratcliffe. Arthur


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)
Iveagh, Countess of
Rathbone, Eleanor


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Jamieson, Douglas
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham


Clayton, Sir Christopher
Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Reid, David D. (County Down)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Joel, Dudley J. Barnato
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.


Colfox, Major William Philip
Ker, J. Campbell
Rickards, George William


Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir Godfrey
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Ropner, Colonel L.


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Conant, R. J. E.
Kimball, Lawrence
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Cook, Thomas A.
Knight, Holford
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter


Cooke, Douglas
Knox, Sir Alfred
Runge, Norah Cecil


Copeland, Ida
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Courtauld, Major John Sewell
Latham, Sir Herbert Paul
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Law, Sir Alfred
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)


Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Rutherford, John (Edmonton)


Cranborne, Viscount
Lees-Jones, John
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Levy, Thomas
Salt, Edward W.


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Galnsb'ro)
Lewis, Oswald
Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)


Crossley, A. C.
Liddall, Walter S.
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil)
Lindsay, Kenneth (Kilmarnock)
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.


Dawson, Sir Philip
Lindsay. Noel Ker
Savery, Samuel Servington


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunliffe-
Scone, Lord


Dixey, Arthur C. N.
Lloyd, Geoffrey
Selley, Harry R.


Dower, Captain A. V. G.
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd. Gr'n)
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Drummond-Wolff, H. M. C.
Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Shute, Colonel J. J.


Duckworth, George A. V.
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin


Duggan, Hubert John
Mabane, William
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Dunglass, Lord
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Smith, Sir Robert (Ab'd'n & K'dine, C.)


Eady, George H.
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Smithers, Sir Waldron


Eden, Rt. Hon. Anthony
McEwen, Captain J. H. F.
Somerset, Thomas


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
McKle, John Hamilton
Somervell, Sir Donald


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton
Somerville, Annesley A (Windsor)


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Soper, Richard


Elmley, Viscount
Macquisten, Frederick Alexander
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Emmott, Charles E. G. C.
Maitland, Adam
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest
Spender-Clay, Rt. Hon. Herbert H.


Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Spens, William Patrick


Fleming, Edward Lascelles
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Fox, Sir Gifford
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Martin, Thomas B.
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Fuller, Captain A. G.
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Stones, James


Ganzonl, Sir John
Meller, Sir Richard James
Storey, Samuel


Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Mills, Sir Frederick (Leyton, E.)
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Mitchell, Harold P. (Br'tf'd & Chisw'k)
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-


Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.


Goff, Sir Park
Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.
Sutcliffe, Harold


Gower, Sir Robert
Moreing, Adrian C.
Tate, Mavis Constance


Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)
Morgan, Robert H.
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A. (P'dd'gt'n, S.)


Granville, Edgar
Morris, John Patrick (Salford. N.)
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)


Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univer'ties)
Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)


Grigg, Sir Edward
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Thompson, Sir Luke


Grimston, R. V.
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Todd, Capt. A. J. K. (B'wick-on-T.)




Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)
Wayland, Sir William A.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Train, John
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour-
Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount


Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Wells, Sydney Richard
Womersley, Sir Walter


Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir H. Kingsley


Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)
Whyte, Jardine Bell
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Wragg, Herbert


Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)
Wills, Wilfrid D.



Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)
Sir Frederick Thomson and Sir


Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
George Penny.


NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Dyke
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Z'tl'nd)
Rea, Walter Russell


Attlee, Clement Richard
Harris, Sir Percy
Rothschild, James A. de


Batey, Joseph
Hicks, Ernest George
Sinclair, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Holdsworth, Herbert
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Janner, Barnett
Thorne, William James


Cape, Thomas
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Tinker, John Joseph


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Kirkwood, David
West, F. R.


Curry, A. C.
Leonard, William
White, Henry Graham


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Edwards, Charles
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)


Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Lunn, William
Wilmot, John


Gardner, Benjamin Walter
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)



Griffiths, George A. (Yorks, W. Riding)
Mainwaring, William Henry
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Grundy, Thomas W.
Mander, Geoffrey le M.
Mr. John and Mr. Groves.


Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)



Question put, and agreed to.

CHAIRMEN'S PANEL.

Mr. William Nicholson reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed him to act as Chairman of Standing Committee C (in respect of the Mines (Working Facilities) Bill [Lords]).

Report to lie upon the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Architects (Registration) Act, 1931." [Architects (Registration) Bill [Lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to make provision with respect to the supply of gas within the limits of supply of the Sheffield Gas Company." [Sheffield Gas Bill [Lords.]

And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to alter the constitution of the Tyne Improvement Commission; to consolidate with amendments the enactments relating to the appointment and election of the Tyne Improvement Commissioners and the auditors of their accounts; to confer further powers on and to amend the Acts relating to the Commissioners; and for other purposes." [Tyne Improvement Bill [Lords.]

SHEFFIELD GAS BILL [Lords].

TYNE IMPROVEMENT BILL [Lords].

Read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PRIVILEGE.

3.33 p.m.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): I beg to move,
That this House doth agree with the report of the Committee of Privileges.
It will be within the recollection of the House that on the 16th April the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) drew the attention of the House to certain activities in which the Secretary of State for India and the Earl of Derby were involved, and moved that the matter be referred to the Committee of Privileges for examination and report. The Committee has finished its work and has made its report. The report was in the hands of hon. Members at some time or other during last Saturday, and, as they will have had plenty of time not only to read it, but to study it carefully, I do not propose, in moving the Resolution, to occupy the time of the House in taking it through the reasons, arguments and the conclusions to which the Committee came. I would only like to draw the attention of the House in a very general way, and for a very few minutes, to the structure of the report itself.
There were certain incidents, letters and minutes of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce produced to us, but, as soon as we began to consider them, it was perfectly evident to every member of the Committee that, taken alone or standing apart, those documents had very little meaning or very little significance. The duty of the Committee was to separate and give them their proper relation in the long stream of events that started, not on the 5th April or the 5th May, but a great many years ago, negotiations, protests and defences put on the part of Lancashire, especially the cotton interests, to the Secretary of State for India on the one hand, and, later on, to the President of the Board of Trade on the other hand. Therefore, the Committee considered that the first service which it could render to this House, whatever conclusions it had to come to in the end, was to relate those documents to the long stream of events which had created the situation between the India Office and the Board of Trade on the one hand, and the cotton interests, represented by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, on the other. That occupies really the greater part of our report.
I would point out to the House that there is no disagreement regarding the facts produced by either side to this complaint. As a matter of fact, Members will have observed that the further considerations regarding privilege and so on in which the Committee had to engage have taken place upon an agreement really with both sides as regards the facts that have been alleged.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I really must interrupt the Prime Minister. He is not quoting me as a party in any way to the agreement that the facts on both sides are correctly stated?

The PRIME MINISTER: My right hon. Friend might have waited one minute. It is perfectly true that to-day at about twenty minutes to one I received a letter from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping, making some points as regards the statement that I have just made. I think that the House will acquit me of having come to any too rapid conclusion about the justice of making such a statement as I have just made. The right hon. Gentleman had his report, I think, on Friday night, or at any rate on Saturday morning, and from that day to this I have received no communication upon this subject at all. I regret further to say—I sincerely regret—that the communication to which I have just referred came to me only after the Cabinet meeting this morning and a comparatively few minutes before one o'clock. Since then I have had to fulfil one of those very imperative official engagements, and really to this moment I have not been able, although I have honestly tried, completely to read, much less to study, the communication which I received, but I am perfectly certain that the right hon. Gentleman will raise the matter in the course of the Debate.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I was only sending a communication to my right hon. Friend to advise him beforehand of certain points to which I should refer during the Debate, and really an answer is scarcely required.

The PRIME MINISTER: If I had received that communication before, I should have had an opportunity of consultation. On the face of it, so far as the deliberations of the Committee are concerned, what I have said is true.
Having got to that point, we then had to consider how far those facts which we took to be in common between both sides had a bearing upon privilege. Did the actions of the Minister amount to or did they not amount to a breach of Privilege? Were they of the nature of actions contemplated in the Sessional Order which has been called into operation? This question was exhaustively considered by the Committee in all its bearings. Precedents were hunted up and examinations made, with the leading authorities at our disposal, of the nature of Committees like the Joint Committee, with reference to which the action took place. I hope that hon. Members have very carefully studied that part of our report, which is the fifth section. To this part of the report, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) appends a warning which, however, is in no way a dissent from the findings of the Committee. The unanimity thus recorded as being the state of mind of the Committee includes the right hon. Member for Oxford University. In paragraph 26 of the report, the decision, after an examination of the facts, as facts, and after a consideration of their relations to Privilege, is recorded:
For the reasons which have been stated, your Committee unanimously report that no breach of Privilege has been committed by Sir Samuel Hoare or by the Earl of Derby.
I do not propose to enter into any controversy now. My duty is to put the report before the House but I cannot overlook the Amendment which is on the Order Paper to-day; it will come out in debate. I will not discuss it; but I do wish to say to the whole of the House that it is due to the two gentlemen referred to in the Resolution bringing this matter before the Committee of Privileges, the Secretary of State for India and the Earl of Derby, that this House should give a clear-cut decision—did they or did they not commit, were they or were they not guilty of, a breach of Privilege. Neither qualification nor addendum that might throw some doubt and might be used outside as having thrown a doubt upon the decision should be allowed, in fairness to those two Members, to go out from this House.

Mr. BOOTHBY: On a point of Order. May I—

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

The PRIME MINISTER: The report then was a unanimous and emphatic request that the House should agree that the documents presented to us should not be published. Let the House remember the position regarding those documents. It was right that the Committee of Privileges should demand production of the documents so as to enable it to discharge its duty to the House. It did so. Every document that had any bearing upon this matter was asked for by the Committee, and I am bound to say that every facility was given in the production of those documents by everybody who held them in their possession. The persons involved, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India, the right hon. Member for Epping and the Earl of Derby, had copies of those documents conveyed to them under conditions of confidence, so that they knew what was in them, they knew the material upon which the Committee was working, and they knew that the Committee had its duty to this House. The Committee took steps to be perfectly fair to the three gentlemen concerned. Any communications which they wished to make to the Committee during its sittings they knew that they could make and they knew that the communications would be considered. The Minutes and the letters were never meant for publication and their publication—I say this on behalf of the Committee and on the instructions of the Committee—would not be in the public interest. Their bearing upon the complaint upon which we have had to report is impartially and fully shown in our narrative, and their substance is there embodied so far as our business is concerned.
Our decision to make this recommendation was made possible by the fact that there is no division of opinion in the Committee as to the facts which the documents disclosed, in which alone we were interested. There is nothing in dispute which requires publication of documents to enable the House to judge on any matter of substance as between the disputants. Moreover, we have been asked by the parties concerned that the documents should not be published, and the Committee feel that it would be most unfair to those who helped us, if the documents so freely placed in our hands for our purposes, that is, for your purposes,
for the purposes of this House, were put in other hands to be used for any other purposes, purposes which this House ought not for one moment to countenance. It is said that this recommendation is unusual. It is nothing of the kind. As a matter of fact, after spending some little time in looking through precedents, I am almost inclined to say to the House that this practice is more usual than unusual. There is a very well known and authoritative book on the matter, "The Law and Practice of Legislative Assemblies" by Mr. Cushing, which settles, I think, the whole matter for this House:
In reporting evidence the Committee has, of course, to exercise its own judgment as to whether the whole of the evidence shall be reported or only certain portions of it, or whether the evidence shall be reported in full or only a summary of it in order to present the grounds of its Resolution to the House.
We have summarised it in our narrative in the first part of our report. Therefore, I move:
That this House doth agree with the Report of the Committee of Privileges.

3.50 p.m.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I think it will be convenient if I group the remarks I have to make this afternoon under three heads. First, my justification for taking the course I did; secondly, the decision of the Committee, and subsequently of His Majesty's Government, to suppress the evidence; and, thirdly, the constitutional consequences of the new interpretation, as I hold it to be, which the Committee have given to the law of Privilege. At the root of this dispute lie very grave and far-reaching issues. I am not going into the merits of the India Conference; I refer to this not for the purpose of dealing with the merits but solely for the purpose of emphasising the magnitude of the issues which lie at the root of this dispute. Manchester said in effect—I am not using their actual words—that at the moment of giving a new constitution to India, with responsibility at the centre and complete tariff autonomy leading up to full Dominion status, safeguards should be incorporated in the constitution to prevent Lancashire and other British trading interests with India being arbitrarily or capriciously ruined at the discretion of an All-India Assembly. I share that view. My friends and I hold
that, while we protect India and maintain a large army for internal order, we have a right to ask for guarantees that the mutually advantageous trade which has so long flourished between Great Britain and India shall not be injured or destroyed by an unfair use of tariffs, bounties, or administrative action, and we think that the new India Constitution Bill affords an occasion when this principle must be brought into review.
The Secretary of State for India and those who think with him hold that there is no possibility of safeguards;that the so-called Fiscal Autonomy Convention must operate with added force under responsible government, and that our only hope is to trust to good will and trade negotiations. This is a grave controversy, and, of course, there are two opinions about it. I myself hold that it is a controversy which lies at the root of the whole of this discussion, all that runs through the report turns upon that issue, and, therefore, it is not a small thing, a little thing, no light matter, about which we are fighting as we are. It is a matter of such grave consequences to our country that in serving that cause one might well sacrifice personal friendships or anything else which may be necessary for the purpose. This was the issue which the Manchester Chamber of Commerce wished to raise in their evidence before the Joint Select Committee, and this was the issue which the Secretary of State for India wished to deter them from raising. Obviously, he had—not a strong personal interest, there is no such idea—a strong personal political interest in doing so, because if Lancashire had brought this claim into the full light of day before the Joint Select Committee there would undoubtedly have been considerable alignment to that opinion of all Lancashire members in opposition to the policy which the Secretary of State was conducting.
The complaint which I make and which I voice is that this claim of Lancashire has never been brought before the Joint Select Committee in the full light of day, and that they have concluded the hearing of evidence in complete ignorance of the fact that Lancashire desires to raise this question. In fact, the evidence finally and publicly tendered by the Manchester representatives to the Joint Select Committee was practically to the effect that they sought no amendment at all in the
India White Paper. That is quite untrue. We are in the presence, first of all, of a substantial matter of controversy, no question of words, but a really grave fundamental variance between two parties, and, secondly, a grievance, which I conceive to exist, that that issue has not been brought to the attention of the Committee or the public.
What was the task of the Committee of Privileges. It seems to me that there were three questions which they had to decide in respect of the Secretary of State for India and Lord Derby. Did they endeavour to procure an alteration in the evidence; did they succeed; and, thirdly, in either event was this a breach of privilege? The first question is one of pure fact, the last is one of pure opinion, and the intermediate question is one in which fact and opinion both play their part. Upon the first question, I submit to the House that almost all the main facts which I submitted to them in April are accepted in the Report. The Prime Minister has said that there was no disagreement about the facts. I am glad that there is no disagreement about the facts which I put in. I am sorry that I cannot wholly reciprocate the compliment. I am glad to see that the Committee put in the forefront their agreement with my declaration that nothing in these charges affects the personal honour or good intentions of the Secretary of State and Lord Derby. I said that; and they have endorsed it after a thorough examination. On the other hand, no attempt is made to dispute the charge that these two statesmen endeavoured to deter the Manchester Chamber of Commerce from tendering their evidence in its original form. I have explained, and the report shows, that the alterations for which they pressed were not small matters. They involved great principles, which I have ventured to lay before the House, which will become dominant in the near future.
In other matters I find myself in complete agreement with the Committee in regard to their confirmation of the facts I adduced in my speech. There is confirmation of the fact that the Secretary of State for India received, before the dinner on 27th June, an outline of the proposed evidence. He received it on the day of the dinner, although it is true that he had not the opportunity of read-
ing it. So also is admitted my statement that this evidence was the subject of discussion at the dinner. There is no dispute about that. I am not going to take up the time of the House by reading out the confirmatory passage in the Committee of Privileges' Report, but they say:
This record was made at the time or shortly after the meeting, and it may be accepted as reliable.
It is quite true that they introduced this refinement:
The impression left upon your Committee is that the main points dealt with by the evidence were, in fact, covered by the statements made at the dinner, but they were not raised or discussed as being the evidence of the Chamber.
I frankly confess that this is not a refinement which had occurred to me, and would not occur to a lay mind. I do not draw a distinction between discussing the evidence and discussing points in the evidence. I make all necessary apologies on that score. Last April I said that the Lancashire Mission to India refused point blank to accept any responsibility for making changes in the evidence. They urged that it should be published in its original form, together with a supplementary paper of a conciliatory character. I was confirmed upon that subject by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hammersley). This is also borne out by the report of the Committee of Privileges, I think on page 16, which shows that the Mission in their telegrams of 3rd, 18th and 23rd October adhered to their view that the evidence should not be altered. Therefore, I say, and the House must forgive me for saying, that it is my duty to justify the course I have taken in invoking this grave, formidable procedure of Privilege which is the power and glory of the House of Commons and which, in this country, as in no other country in the world, enables a private Member of this House to hold the whole machinery of the State up to accountability—a procedure which has come down from our ancestors. In any other country in the world, I suppose, I should be put in a concentration camp and visited by a party of overgrown schoolboys. But here one has this right, and I would regard it as most dishonourable to have invoked this procedure unless I could offer solid reasons of duty and fact as a justification for taking that course.
I must, however, correct my original prima facie statement in a few particulars. First, I was not aware that after the dinner of which there has been so much talk—the so-called Derby dinner of the 27th June—Lord Derby had altered his opinion for very good reasons, because of the trade negotiations. I assumed that his opinion had been the same throughout. I did not realise that whereas before the dinner he was in agreement with the original evidence of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, shortly after the dinner he changed his view, and, instead of being the ambassador of Lancashire to the India Office, he became very much in this respect, in the interests of Manchester, the ambassador of the India Office to Lancashire. The dinner, therefore, while quite correctly described by me in many essentials, stood in an entirely different setting from that which I had supposed. It was not an attempt—I am bound to make this admission—by the Secretary of State, through Lord Derby, to modify the Lancashire point of view. It was, in fact, an attempt by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, through Lord Derby, to modify the Secretary of State's point of view. I hope I make that quite clear.
However, the dinner has receded altogether into the background and in importance as this inquiry has developed. It has been superseded by the far more direct, tangible and incontrovertible evidence of the letters of the Secretary of State to Lord Derby, and Lord Derby's letters to the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Streat. Secondly, when I stated that Lord Derby sought to persuade members of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to alter their evidence in September, I ought to have added July and August, because those months were the period of his chief activities. But these are the only modifications. I stand here with the report before the House, and I say that those are the only modifications I have to make in the prima facie statement, except that I ought to have been more careful every time I said "procure alteration," in following the words of the Sessional Order—" to procure or endeavour to procure" the alteration of evidence. With these exceptions, which in no way
affect the validity of the charge I make, I rest with confidence upon my statement to the House. I do not withdraw it or modify it in any way. I claim that the report has established that the Secretary of State and Lord Derby, jointly and severally, from the best of motives, and in a perfectly honourable manner, endeavoured to deter the Manchester witnesses from presenting the evidence they desired to present.
If the only question at issue in this matter turned upon this point of "hath endeavoured" to deter, I should rest content with the narrative contained in the report of the Committee, because about that there is really no dispute, as the Prime Minister said. But it is when we come to these issues which are raised of advice, influence and pressure that we need much fuller details and a clearer account. Where, I would ask, does advice end and pressure begin? I can conceive that one of the answers which may be made to that is that advice becomes pressure when it is offered to a witness by a member of the tribunal before whom that witness is to plead his case. At any rate, I commend that definition—certainly not exhaustive—to the considered thought of the House. It is when we enter the region of what I may call "peaceful persuasion" that we must have fuller details. You cannot judge of the quality of the influence except in relation to the particular facts of the case. It is quite impossible for the House to judge the merits from the report which is before them now. Indeed, I think it is a mystifying document. It seems to be jumbled both in topics and in chronology. References to salient points are so obscure that it fails to convey, I should think, to the ordinary reader who had to study it for the first time, any clear, and almost any intelligible, impression in many particulars. I certainly cannot accept it as an adequate account of what took place, or as an adequate account of the evidence, and still less of the documents, to which I am coining presently.
I, therefore, protest against the decision that the evidence is to be suppressed. I quite agree that some parts of the evidence should be excluded—certainly parts which relate to the interior discussions of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. It would not be fair or right at all that these should be made
public in so far as they are likely to damage their trading affairs. But the great bulk of the evidence is quite irrelevant to the points at issue. There would be no difficulty in excising some parts of the evidence which are said to be detrimental to the public interest, and I admit that some parts are. I was much obliged to the Prime Minister. I was going to argue the case that there was nothing to prevent certain of these documents from being published, but he has quoted an authority, the name of which I did not catch, that obviously the Committee could recommend the House to publish the whole, or part, or none of the evidence. So that there is not the slightest reason why this evidence, so far as it is material to the great constitutional issue which is raised, should not be published, and the other parts which affect Lancashire interests or wider national interests excluded. However, the Government have taken their decision on the matter and, of course, whatever they decide, they have overwhelming power; but, if the evidence is to be suppressed as a whole, it becomes all the more important that the narrative of the report should be correct, and where the documents are quoted, they should be quoted faithfully.
I was very much surprised to hear the Prime Minister claim me as being in agreement with the facts. I put in documents at the invitation of the Committee in entire disagreement with many of the facts contained in the report. Naturally, I received no answer to that. The Committee have published their report, and I have to face their final decision. I intended to raise it in Debate in the House of Commons, because it is my opportunity and my duty to raise it here, and, of course, in courtesy I sent the Prime Minister this morning the letter to which he made considerable reference in his brief speech. I pointed out that I was going to ask about certain points where, I think, the Committee have made a mistake, or committed an oversight, or not given an adequate or a true account—I do not mean in any offensive sense—of particular documents they have cited, summarised or quoted fully, and used as points in their argument. Therefore, I sent in the letter in order that he and the Attorney-General, who is by his side, might have the documents handy, so that
when I asked a question about them there would not be any difficulty in finding the passages to which I should venture to refer.
I must say that this evidence divides itself into two parts. There is the evidence which I put in which was placed unreservedly in my hands, and I obtained from the Prime Minister, in writing, an assurance that the legal character of the evidence would not be in any way altered or become the property of the Government or anything like that, from the fact that I had placed it at the disposal of the Committee for the work in which they were engaged. I need scarcely say that I should never dream of publishing any part of the evidence unless I were satisfied that it would be advantageous—not merely not disadvantageous—to the Lancashire trade. The rest of the evidence has been elicited by the Committee, as it was bound to be elicited, from the body of documents which I put before them, and which afforded a continuous narrative over the whole period of these transactions when they came to be examined. The evidence put before the Committee supplements, fortifies and, in some parts, corrects the evidence which I set forward. That evidence has been shown to me and to the Secretary of State in confidence, and I shall strictly respect that confidence. But I am not prepared to submit to any mis-statement which will have the consequence of misleading the House at this time.
I shall consider myself entitled to correct points in the evidence where, by oversight or accident, there is a mistake and a wrong impression is given, and I hope, indeed, that the Prime Minister will be as anxious as I am to make sure that a true impression is given to the House, provided that in no way is there anything adduced which could have the effect of prejudicing public or Lancashire interests. I shall not embark—I can assure the House I will be as brief as I possibly can—upon any exhaustive or meticulous examination of the narrative contained in the report. I will content myself with a few major instances. The first one which I will recite is the letter from the Secretary of State to Mr. Bond, the President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, which is referred to in paragraph 17 of the report. The report says:
On 7th July Sir Samuel Hoare sent a considered reply to Mr. Bond's letter of
23rd May. He explained that he had postponed a reply in view of the dinner which the Earl of Derby had arranged, and again gave an assurance that, when the representatives of the Chamber of Commerce gave evidence, the Joint Committee would examine the case of the cotton trade with every care and sympathy.
I wonder what was the point of that? Everyone would know that a Minister's reply is always a considered reply. Everyone would know that a body like the Manchester Chamber of Commerce would be listened to with reasonable care and sympathy. Why was this letter put in? There is a sentence omitted from that letter. The last sentence is omitted, I have no doubt by inadvertence or by-oversight, but the last sentence is the only sentence which is in the slightest degree relevant to the matter before the House—the only one which has anything whatever to do with it. It is a very important sentence and one which in no way affects the public interest. It has nothing to do with the trade between Lancashire and India; it has nothing to do with foreign relations. It is a sentence which affects only the Secretary of State but which affects him very directly and is entirely relevant to the arguments which I seek to deploy to the House. I would ask the Prime Minister if he has any objection to me quoting that last sentence or to quoting it himself. I pause for a reply.

HON. MEMBERS: Answer!

The PRIME MINISTER: The whole point is this. If quotations are to be begun from one document and another, how can the House accept the report which the Committee of Privileges has given them? This is one of the things that I should have liked very much to have had an opportunity of considering. I have not been able, since I received the letter from the right hon. Gentleman, even to see the sentence which he wishes to quote and which has been handed to me this very minute by the Attorney-General. It is not a question of whether this sentence should be quoted or not, but of whether the recommendation of the Committee of Privileges is going to be carried out.

HON. MEMBERS: No!

Mr. CHURCHILL: These considerations would indeed be very important if the letter had not already been quoted,
but, according to all tradition and practice in the House, when a document is recognisably quoted to a considerable extent, and any party who has knowledge of that document complains that the full quotation has not been made, it is customary that that should be accorded Of course, if the Prime Minister says that the public interest is involved in reading that sentence then I should be very much surprised but, if not, may I ask the Secretary of State for India himself. It is his letter. He is the man involved. He is very much concerned, but there is nothing dishonourable about the sentence. Is he so much concerned, after all the prominence that has been given to it, that this sentence should be concealed? I again pause for a reply.

The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare): I have no desire to enter into a controversy upon a point of this kind with my right hon. Friend. I am here to-day not to argue this case but to accept the report of the Committee to which he referred this question. As to whether this or that sentence would be advantageous to my point of view, or the public, that is another question.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am bound to say that I consider that, if this attitude is to be adopted, it constitutes a breach of confidence, and there is no breach of confidence so bad as to publish a one-sided and misleading account of a document and then to hold the other party bound in honour not to reveal it.

The PRIME MINISTER: Well, it is very easy to start that hare, but, if the right hon. Gentleman really gets up and says that the sentence which he wishes to be quoted is a sentence which shows any desire on the part of the Committee of Privileges to suppress essential facts, then all I can say is, after perusing it now, that that really is not a true statement. There is nothing in the disclosure of this sentence which would add to the statement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Read it out!"] It is for the House to settle the whole matter, and I do hope that the House is not going to be led away by any of these well-known debating operations. It is for the House to say and if there were anything in that sentence which really justified the characterisation which the right hon. Gentleman has made, I am perfectly certain that it
would be the desire of everybody concerned to have it out, but because it has no such importance, I do beg the House—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I do hope the House is going to take an attitude on this which will be consistent with its decision later on. I do beg the House to make up its mind whether, bit by bit, quotations are to be made which are going to destroy the unanimous and emphatic decision of the Committee of Privileges that the documents should not be disclosed. And at the same time I ask that the House will not allow doubts to be cast upon the fact that this Report, as a whole, does give quite accurately and fairly a complete narrative of the events.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: On a point of Order. In view of the recognised custom of the House that documents which are mentioned and quoted shall be quoted as a whole, when asked for specially by parties concerned, will the Prime Minister state—and I am sure we should accept his statement—that it is not in the public interest for this particular sentence to be read?

Mr. SPEAKER: The document to which reference has been made does not come under that Rule. This is not an official document.

Mr. CHURCHILL: As I say, I hold that in strict equity and honourable conduct I am perfectly entitled to read that sentence, but I am not going to do so without permission because I will not let one bad act lead to another. Nothing can be more unfair than to hold one party bound, while giving an imperfect and inaccurate account of a particular document and not allowing the necessary correction to be made. I really wonder at the Government putting themselves in that position. I am not accusing them of any malevolent intention in the matter. It never occurred to me that they would not be glad that this particular sentence, if I attached importance to it, should not be read, and I may say about this sentence that it is my contention that it would have a direct bearing upon the wording of the ultimate decision of the Committee of Privileges.

The ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip): This passage is not a passage which, if the House hears it,
they will, I venture to think, consider as of any great importance one way or the other. It is most certain—I will not say it of this sentence—that there are certain sentences in the letters which no reasonable person could say, if they were disclosed, taken alone, would be contrary to the public interest, but the importance of the Committee's recommendation contained in the last paragraph is that, if the evidence as a whole were to be published, it would be harmful to the public interest. Anyone will realise that the moment you begin to open the door to quotations and read isolated passages you destroy the whole value of that recommendation, because it is then open to the right hon. Gentleman and to myself, when I come to reply, to pick out passages which we think will not interfere with the public interest but which we think will support the case which we desire to make. The right hon. Gentleman is at liberty of course—I cannot prevent him, and the Prime Minister does not desire to prevent him—to take his own course, and he will submit himself to the House, if he reads this passage, not having put down any Amendment to the Committee's report, but having made this statement in the course of debate, and the House will judge for itself whether or not that is a proper course for the right hon. Gentleman to take.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I certainly will accept that invitation, and I hope I may feel that the Secretary of State who, as I say, is not reflected on in any personal manner, associates himself with it. I should like to feel that he is with me, that it should be read. There has been such a fight about producing this sentence—it might have been produced at the first moment—that I must relieve the feelings of the House by saying that it in no way affects the personal reputation of the right hon. Gentleman. Let me tell the House that this is a very short letter. Almost the half of it is here in the re port and is of no consequence in particular, but the last sentence is this. This is what the Secretary of State wrote on 7th of July to Mr. Bond, the President of the Chamber of Commerce:
Of course, the whole matter so far as the Constitution is concerned, is now in the hands of the Joint Select Committee and, pending their conclusions, it would not, I think, be appropriate or useful that I should go into it any further.
The Committee has been sitting for three months and that expression "not appropriate," which the Secretary of State applied to his own action, reflected on what he had done in the past and reflected more on what he was about to do in the future. I put it to the House that we are not talking about anything that is dishonourable or immoral, but we are talking about things which we allege are inappropriate, and I say that with that word figuring in the mouth of the Secretary of State himself, it is surprising that such a word found no reflection in the ultimate report of the Committee.

Sir S. HOARE: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman once again, but I should have thought that that was one sentence in all this correspondence with which he would have been in entire agreement.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I was indeed and that explains my anxiety to have it brought to the light of day. Now I come to the letter of 17th July. This letter is summarised at considerable length and part of it is printed on page 5. Part of that letter shows that the Secretary of State wrote to Lord Derby seeking to enlist his help as mediator. On page 5, the Committee says the Secretary of State asked him to use his influence, or quotes him as having urged that, which is quite true. Both of these are in the same letter. Why was it appropriate, I want to know, for the Secretary of State to ask Lord Derby, a fellow member of the Joint Select Committee, to use his great influence with the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, when at the same time he himself knew that it was inappropriate for him to do it any further? I am entitled to ask these questions. These matters do not turn, thank God, in this country upon any hideous scandals, but they do turn upon nice points of Parliamentary conduct which the House is perfectly capable of deciding. I say that this account of this letter is most unsatisfactory. Part of it is contained in one part of the document and part in another, but the letter is a most important document. The letter of the Secretary of State to Lord Derby of the 17th July has already been half, or rather quarter, published here and summarised
in a manner that is colourless and bald, so that no one can see the significance of it. It was the letter in which the Secretary of State urged Lord Derby to do what he himself did not feel he ought to continue to do, and it puts, in the most categorical manner, the great alterations of principle which he wished to have induced in the Manchester evidence.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—I hope he will allow me to continue to call him so—shakes his head. I am not going to ask for further quotations in this matter, but because I have opened a point on which I have been denied, I say that the Government ought themselves to publish the exact requests for the alteration of the evidence on the great fundamental points which the Secretary of State made to Lord Derby and which he asked him to use his influence to procure. We ought to have that. What do we read in the very next line? What I can only call a complete misstatement.

Sir PERCY HARRIS: Is that an attack on the Committee of Privileges?

Mr. CHURCHILL: It is an attack on the report. Why is it brought before the House if we are not allowed to quote it? In the very next line of the quotation of this letter of the 17th is a statement about the letter which Lord Derby wrote in consequence of that letter, and this is the statement:
As the result of this suggestion the Earl of Derby wrote to the Secretary of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce on 19th July urging re-consideration of the wording of certain clauses in the memorandum.
That is quite untrue. I do not mean that it is not true—he may have said it was the wording—but it is quite untrue that what he asked was re-consideration of the wording, and if the letter were published, everybody would see that that could not hold water for a moment. Great and fundamental changes were demanded by the Secretary of State. Lord Derby copied out these changes arid sent them forward, line after line, with all his influence, to his friend the. Secretary of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and yet the Committee comes before the House and writes on the face of the report the statement that this is only a matter of wording. I deny it altogether, and I say that that is a complete misrepresentation of the facts.
What is the bearing of this upon another point? Here we see the Secretary of State asking Lord Derby to press the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, through its Secretary, to make important alterations in its evidence. We are told—and the report lays great weight upon it—that they only acted when invited. There is no truth in that, in so far as this matter was concerned. There was no invitation to the Secretary of State, or to Lord Derby at this stage, to advise them. On the contrary, the Secretary of State asked him, and when Lord Derby wrote to the Secretary of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, what was the answer? This is all apparent in the document. It was so discouraging that, after some further interchanges, his Lordship decided that the letter should be withdrawn, so you cannot say, as the Committee attach great importance to it at one point in their recommendations, that this advice was only given when asked for. There was no invitation at all.
I put these instances forward—I could naturally multiply them—in order to show how very inconvenient it is to be working on mere summaries of the important documents on which this case turns. And let me say that the House has a great responsibility in this matter. This House is the judge of privilege. It was not to the Committee of Privileges that I appealed; I appealed to the House, and the Committee of Privileges is the instrument by which the House has investigated the matter, and the House is now asked to pronounce on these questions without seeing the documents, which, if they were published, would, I am sure, enable a true opinion to be formed upon the character of the action of which we have made complaint.
I specify the following letters which, in my opinion, ought to be published:—The Secretary of State to Mr. Bond, of the 5th May; Mr. Bond to the Secretary of State, of the 23rd May, with enclosure; the Secretary of State to Mr. Bond, of the 7th July; the Secretary of State to Lord Derby, of the 17th July; Lord Derby to Mr. Streat, of the 19th July; Lord Derby to Mr. Streat, of the 9th August, with enclosure. None of these letters in any way, if published, would have the effect of injuring Lancashire trade or really trespassing at all upon matters which could touch the
public interest, but they are all essential to a fair judgment being formed of the character of the transaction which has been under review, and I say that the summaries and the account in the narrative do riot put the House in a position to judge fairly what those documents convey.
I come to the last part of my remarks, namely, the technical and constitutional aspect. I submitted that the Secretary of State had infringed in general the privilege of the House of Commons, and also, in special, the wording of Sessional Order No. 1, which says, "directly or indirectly hath endeavoured to deter "—very harmless, but very searching words. I notice that the Committee refer to this as the Sessional Order of 1700. That may be true, but the wisdom of our ancestors comes down, and it is only some three or four months ago that the House renewed this Order. It is not merely archaic or obsolete procedure, but kept in full and living force from Session to Session, every year.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that we described this Sessional Order as of the year 1700? When we quote the Order we expressly use the expression:
The Sessional Order first passed in the year 1700.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not making a serious accusation, but these old things which were found out in the past are very well worth holding on to in these modern days. Great stress is laid upon the point by the Secretary of State that he failed in his endeavour. He admitted to the Committee that he had tried, and he admitted in the House that he had tried, through various channels, but he asserted that he had failed. Such a plea may affect the gravity of the right hon. Gentleman's action, but it does not in the slightest degree alter its character from the standpoint of privilege. The task of the Committee of Privileges was to decide whether the facts fell within the ambit of the Sessional Order, and on this they have made pronouncements of a grave and far-reaching character. If these pronouncements are endorsed by the House, as no doubt they will be, they will govern for the future the character and procedure of all Committees of the House.
The House will no doubt, on the Amendment which has been placed on the Paper by my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) examine in more detail the effect of some of these pronouncements, which are contained principally in paragraph 21—an extraordinary paragraph to be the foundation of our Parliamentary law for the future. Any lawyer, I am told, who likes to read it will see that it is, from beginning to end, a mass of mixed thinking, bristling with non sequiturs and questionable points, and adorned at intervals by pious and good-natured conclusions and platitudes. Such a paragraph as this paragraph 21 cannot remain as the last word on this subject in the future in any circumstances.
Let me just mention one or two of the gems. The Sessional Order, it says, "has only a very limited application to this Committee." I confess that that surprises me very much. Then we are told that this Committee is not a judicial body, and, because it is not a judicial body, it is mainly outside the Sessional Order. If it were so obvious that the Committee was not a judicial body, and that the Sessional Order did not apply, why did you want to take two months considering this matter? It could have been settled in two days. As soon as I had finished unfolding my case, the Committee could have said to me, "Mr. Churchill, you make no charge against the honour or integrity of these gentlemen." I should have said, "No, I do not; indeed, I vouch for them." They would have said, "You do not charge bribery, malice, or corruption on any point. Let us tell you that this Joint Select Committee is not a judicial committee. Let us tell you that the ordinary rules for administering justice and ascertaining facts do not apply to it. Let us tell you that evidence given before it is not evidence in the ordinary sense of the word, that the witnesses are different from other witnesses, that the relations between the members of the Committee and the witnesses are quite different from what is the case with other committees. You have no case at all. There has been no breach of privilege, and there will be no inquiry. We wish you a very good morning."
Why did they not say that? Instead of that, we had this prolonged examination,
and I do not wonder at all that they took a long time to give the ruling which they have given in this document. No doubt they realised the gravity of these new interpretations of the law and their effect upon the privileges of the House of Commons. No doubt they shrank from the contradictions which they had to introduce into the ordinary meaning of words. They saw no doubt the far-reaching effects of the discrimination between one kind of committee and another. They saw the disadvantages of narrowing the privileges of the House and the danger of opening the door to laxity of many kinds. Above all, they must have shrunk from doing anything which seemed to lower the status of the Joint Select Committee by describing them as they do on pages 17 and 18:
The Joint Committee are not in the ordinary sense a judicial body.… The members were chosen by Parliament in the full light of the knowledge that many of them had already formed opinions as to the proposals contained in the White Paper.… The ordinary rules which apply to tribunals engaged in administering justice … cannot be applied to the Joint Committee.
And here is a most remarkable sentence. I will read any sentence, if you tell me to. I reciprocate the courtesy with which I have been treated.

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir John Simon): I think the right hon. Gentleman would wish to finish the sentence he began. He unfortunately dropped it.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Tell me.

Sir J. SIMON: This is the sentence:
The ordinary rules which apply to tribunals engaged in administering justice"—
Then the right hon. Gentleman dropped it, but it goes on:
or deciding issues of fact between contending parties cannot be applied to the Joint Committee.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I will go on:
It might be said that the Committee should proceed in a judicial spirit.
Surely a very audacious statement about this Committee. But then it goes on to say:
But this could only mean that the Committee should act fairly and without suffering prejudice"—
That evidently means their prejudice; I read it that way:
to hinder the hearing"—
not the weighing—
of all sorts of opinions.
I have never been very eulogistic of the Joint Select Committee, but I do not wonder at all that the Committee of Privileges, and particularly the Lord President of the Council, were reluctant to describe them in these extremely bleak terms; for what did my right hon. Friend the Lord President say in his speech at the Friends' House on the 29th June, 1933? He said:
I am not going to discuss in this short space of time the merits of the 'White Paper. Its merits are under semi-judicial consideration to-day by the Joint Select Committee, and I leave it at that. And remember their work is of a semi-judicial nature.
I give you the "semi"; I do not wish to be at all captious about that. What a fortunate thing it is that these words are inroduced:
And remember their work is of a semi-judicial nature.
I suppose it is judicial one way and not judicial the other.
They have been solemnly charged by Parliament to go into these matters, to examine them and examine witnesses of every point of view. They can find out who are the true witnesses and who are not.
Again and again we have been exhorted in these matters—I could multiply them with quotations—to wait while this question is sub judice. We have been invited time and time again to admire the restraint of the Secretary of State and other members of the Committee who are supporters of the Government in remaining silent on the public platform and not embarking in public discussions, but apparently this prohibition only extends to their public activities. There is a charter for everyone to do what he likes to carry on the good work behind the scenes so long as he marks it "Private and confidential." Nothing that is dishonourable and criminal can be done in those circumstances. These liberties are not only extended to the right hon. Gentleman in his dual capacity, which argument has not been pressed at all because he sought it himself, but are offered freely, as far as I gather, to all members of the Committee. It is open under this ruling for any
member of the Joint Select Committee to do anything in his power to endeavour to deter any witness from presenting evidence as he wished to present it; to do this without informing other members of the Joint Select Committee; and to sit still while those witnesses are giving evidence contrary to what it was known was their original wish to give without informing the other members of the Committee. As I say, these rulings are authoritative. We shall have to recognise them as the conditions which will govern us and the working of our committees in future. I do not wonder that before the Committee of Privileges and the leader of the Conservative party could have brought themselves to such decisions, they thought it necessary to explore every other avenue before they broke their way out through this emergency exit.
I think, on the whole, that it may be said that this Joint Select Committee deserved a little better description than it has received, although I never expected to be here in this House to say it. It has a corporate life and responsibility. It has a corporate sense. We ourselves—those who think as I do on this topic—were offered a few seats upon the Committee for representatives of the anti-White Paper point of view. What happened? Some of those men who were put on were our keenest partisans. From the moment they became members of the Committee a gulf opened between us and them, and not one of them would have dared to break the reserve which they imposed upon themselves. With only these two exceptions the Joint Select Committee have taken their duties with very great seriousness, and it is doing less than justice to their status and character to describe them in the terms in which they are described on page 18.
Still, that is the effect of the ruling which has been given. For the first time, our committees are to be put into two classes, or I should say three—judicial, non-judicial and semi-judicial. One is governed by the Sessional Order, and the others are now, we are told, largely and mainly outside it. Not only that, but evidence receives a new classification. Evidence which is opinion can be persuaded away, or even, I gather—although it is not quite clear—over-persuaded away to any extent other than by bribery or
corruption. These are very far-reaching decisions. I must admit frankly to the House that it never occurred to me for a moment that the Committee would not find a technical breach of privilege. I thought it might have been a much bolder and a more effective and satisfactory course for them. Over and over again in our history in times of emergency and difficulty Ministers of the Crown or citizens of great public responsibility have had to break the law. What has been the remedy that Parliament has adopted? They have not smirched the law. On the contrary, they have affirmed the law, but they have sought from Parliament an honourable indemnity for the Ministers concerned. That is the course I expected would have been adopted here, namely, that after a technical verdict had been given the Government would have asked, as they could have done, for every confidence to be expressed in the Ministers and for their integrity to be affirmed; and I personally would have been very glad to associate myself with them.
The Committee have chosen instead to give a new interpretation, as I hold, of the Rules of Privilege, to do violence to the plain meaning of the English language, to cast a slur upon the status of the Joint Select Committee, and to alter sensibly the procedure of Parliamentary Committees. Many here may live to regret that the custodians of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons have decided to meet a temporary difficulty by taking that course. I thank the House for the great indulgence with which they have treated me. I feel that that is due to the fact that, in a sense, I am defending my own conduct, and the House always gives a double measure of consideration to anyone placed in that position.
I have been discussing these technical matters, but far beyond the technicalities of procedure and privilege there arises an issue of blunt, stark simplicity. I present this issue, particularly to my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council. I have no doubt that when he spoke as he did at the Friends' House a year ago, he believed what he said, and he meant what he said; and many people have noticed that on frequent occasions the right hon. Gentleman—what is quite rare in our public life—is found to be keeping
his word even in his own despite. I am sure that that was what he meant when he made that speech, and I ask him whether this account set forth in this report is really the way which Parliament meant and expected this great inquiry by the Joint Select Committee to be conducted. Is it really the way which he as leader of the Conservative party meant it to be conducted? Are these the methods, quite blameless in personal honour, these methods of management and organising, to be approved indiscriminately and even applauded? Are they to be our guide in the future? Are they to be applied in every direction? We have seen this Lancashire case to a certain extent explored, and we see all there is behind it; but let the House imagine what would happen or may have happened when such processes are applied over the whole vast field of the Indian case. Apply it to the evidence of the Rajahs and the European associations in India. Apply it to the formation and expression of opinion throughout the Civil Service. The noble Lord the right hon. Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) used a searching phrase when he spoke of witnesses being marshalled as if they were an orchestra under the baton of a conductor. In this Indian sphere, it is the rod of the ruler which would be applied. I ask the House to pause long and to think deeply before they blindly apply to the methods revealed in this report the seal of Parliamentary approbation.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. AMERY: I confess I had hoped for a very different speech from that to which we have just listened. There is no one in this House who knows better how to conduct a skilful and good-humoured retreat from an untenable position than my right hon. Friend, and no one in this House to whom as an old favourite in difficult circumstances it is more willing to extend its fullest consideration. He has not invited our consideration. He has instead delivered a direct frontal attack on the findings of the Committee of Privileges. Of his speech, I shall have a good deal to say in a moment, but I would like at this moment to draw attention to one feature of it. It is his achievement, in connection with that much disputed sentence in the Secretary of State's letter, a sentence produced in circumstances of great excitement, his unique achievement of disclosing a mare's
nest within a mare's nest. Let me turn back, not to the case that my right hon. Friend has made this afternoon, but to the case which he made in the original speech when he demanded the verdict of the Committee of Privileges which he now finds so little to his liking. It was a speech portentous alike in the gravity of its indictment and in the manner of its delivery. Never have we seen a match put to a gunpowder barrel from a sterner sense of duty or with a livelier anticipation of a glorious explosion. Never has there been a Guy Fawkes so solicitous to preserve the liberties and rights of the House of Commons. My right hon. Friend had come into possession, we know not how and by what channels or after what discussions, of certain documents which to him proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the high crime and misdemeanour of tampering with witnesses before a Select Committee of Parliament had been committed by such trusted members of that committee as the Secretary of State and Lord Derby. So scandalous, so flagitious a proceeding called for immediate action and for exemplary punishment. My right hon. Friend said:
As soon as I saw these papers I was sure that I could not discharge my responsibility except by raising the case as a breach of Privilege.
He said again:
I raise this question with the greatest reluctance, but I also do so with the conviction that I have no other choice.
Like another Martin Luther he could only say: "Here stand I; I can do no other." My right hon. Friend had no illusions as to the gravity of the charge he brought forward or as to the consequences which would be involved if the charge had been proved, even with extenuating circumstances. What would have followed? Inevitably it would have meant the resignation of the Secretary of State. It would have meant the dislocation for months of the work of the Select Committee. It would have meant a crisis which would have shattered the Conservative party, and might even have brought down His Majesty's Government. But let me quote my right hon. Friend again:
Personal considerations must not affect the faithful and uncompromising discharge of public duties by Members of the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1934; cols. 714 and 721, Vol. 288.]
At all costs he had to be faithful to his chosen motto: "Fiat justitia, ruat caelum."

Mr. CHURCHILL: Translate it.

Mr. AMERY: I will translate it into the vernacular: "If I can trip up Sam, the Government's bust." He said he had no choice. May I suggest to him two obvious alternatives which he might have pursued? One was to have approached an old friend and colleague like Lord Derby or the Secretary of State, to have shown him the documents that had fallen into his hands, to tell him what grave inference he had drawn from those documents, and to indicate that he was bound to pursue the course which he has pursued unless some other light could have been thrown upon the matter—that other light which the report of the Committee of Privileges has thrown on it. But if the pursuit of our differences as to the precise methods of further constitutional advance in India precluded all ordinary and reasonable intercourse between old colleagues and Members of the same party, there was another way. It was equally easy for him to address himself to those members of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Rodier, Mr. Richard Bond or Sir Thomas Barlow, whose evidence presumably formed the foundation for the conclusions of the report. If my right hon. Friend had done that we might have been saved two whole months during which the wheels of Government stood still, while leading Members of the House were investigating with infinite care a series of charges which now turn out to be unfounded, and I am prepared to say frivolous.
Thinking of my right hon. Friend's attitude reminds me not quite so much of Martin Luther as of another eminent personage, Lord Macaulay. Most of us have been reading recently with immense enjoyment the brilliant volume in which my right hon. Friend has vindicated the reputation of his great ancestor against charges so lightly brought against him by Lord Macaulay in his History. My right hon. Friend has, I think, proved that Lord Macaulay accepted all too readily as the foundation of a charge of the basest treachery in connection with the Camaret Bay expedition, a letter which a fuller and more careful consideration of all the circumstances might have led
Lord Macaulay to realise was in the highest degree suspect. What did my right hon. Friend say of Lord Macaulay's action:
Lord Macaulay assumes its authenticity with unquestioning glee, and proceeds to use it in the most sensational and malicious manner.
Like Lord Macaulay my right hon. Friend discovered, I know not how, and it may never be told, certain documents. He hastened "with unquestioning glee" to build upon them a structure of inference, of surmise, of innuendo which the searching investigation of the Committee of Privileges has tumbled down like a house of cards.
My right hon. Friend has challenged the whole finding of the Committee of Privileges. If the House will pardon me, I will take them through a few of the main points of his charge and of the answer to that charge. According to my right hon. Friend, the whole story began in May, with the forecast and outline of evidence of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce.
As soon as the evidence reached the Secretary of State for India … the Secretary of State from that date set himself to prevent the presentation of the Lancashire evidence in the form in which those most concerned in the welfare of the cotton industry wished to present it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1934: cols. 714 and 715, Vol. 288.]
The facts show clearly that the story began long before. It began not with any summary of evidence. The actual Memorandum was not read by the Secretary of State until 7th July. It began with a request by the Chamber of Commerce at the end of March to interview the Secretary of State and the President of the Board of Trade, in order to lay before them certain views which they felt very strongly. They laid those views before the two Ministers on 3rd April. They were dissatisfied with the attitude of the Ministers and with the letters which the Secretary of State subsequently sent them. They made their protest. They finally appealed to Lord Derby as their friend and mediator—and nothing comes out more clearly from the report than the whole-hearted way in which Lord Derby from beginning to end put himself at the disposal of Lancashire to watch over its interests—to assist them
to have another opportunity of pressing Ministers.
Let me take the next point. My right hon. Friend suggested that in order to avoid "inconvenient evidence" Lord Derby and the Secretary of State "got into touch with the witnesses, invited them to dinner and induced them to transform their evidence." It is perfectly clear now, and even my right hon. Friend admits it, that it was the Lancashire representatives who asked for the opportunity afforded by the dinner of again tackling the Secretary of State. The whole evening was devoted by the Lancashire representatives to bombarding the Secretary of State in their speeches and endeavouring to convert him to their policy. It was only at the end of the proceedings that the Secretary of State made a brief reply. Those of us who know him in this House can quite well imagine the character of that reply and of his attitude—courteous, urbane, conciliatory, and wholly unshakable. That was to Lancashire disappointing. What also emerges from that dinner is that the evidence as such was not discussed. The report says on page 13:
There was no suggestion whatever… that the evidence should be altered.
Let me take the next item in my right hon. Friend's charge, that "in order to conform with the pressure which on that occasion and subsequently was exercised upon Lancashire, the hearing of the evidence was put off." That widens the accusation. That includes in the accusation of malfeasance the Secretary and presumably even the Chairman of the Select Committee. What are the facts? Page 11 of the report makes it perfectly clear that the evidence was postponed in accordance with a general decision of the Committee to postpone the hearing of all English witnesses until the autumn. Take one further point. In col. 717 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 16th April, there is the charge which is reiterated by my right hon. Friend to-day:
Attempts were made to persuade this mission to take the responsibility upon themselves of asking that the original evidence should be altered. The mission, however, were on the spot.… They refused point blank to accept any responsibility for making any changes in the evidence.… In spite of what their mission said the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, under the pressures to which they were subject, took the responsibility upon themselves of agreeing to substantial and indeed fundamental alterations in the evidence.
There, again, it is perfectly clear that once the Mission started no attempt was made by anyone to influence their point of view. It was the circumstances in India which influenced them, and the Mission, while reluctant to suggest an amendment of the original Memorandum in case their mission failed, had only one idea, and that was at all costs to postpone the Memorandum indefinitely, to bury it for many long months, until the Select Committee's Report should appear, to accompany it, if ever it should appear in a Blue Book, with a cordial supplement, jam for the Indian palate to veil the bitter taste of earlier paragraphs, and meanwhile, at all costs, to prevent their Lancashire colleagues from giving any oral evidence at all.
Was there no pressure in that? It was pressure of an impracticable kind, because those things could not be done. But still under the pressure from their Mission the Chamber decided on its own responsibility to modify its evidence. The report finds, I think quite rightly, that
the effectual cause of the resolution to modify the evidence was the message received from the Mission in India … the decisive influence was the Indian messages.
The report adds its conclusion that
a genuine change of opinion
had taken place and that the final version of the Memorandum was
a true expression of the opinion of the majority at the time it was tendered in evidence.
Now let me turn to another aspect. Even if the facts had been substantially as stated on that occasion by my right hon. Friend, or as stated by him in a somewhat different form to-day, I submit that they did not constitute a foundation for the grave charge which he then made. In his speech on 16th April my right hon. Friend led us to believe that his study of precedents in Erskine May, showed that no question of corruption, nothing more than mere advice was necessary to constitute tampering with witnesses before a Select Committee. He gave an instance which is reported in Col. 719 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. He said:
There was a case in 1809 where a gentleman was proceeded against by the House of Commns on the ground of tampering, when all he had done was to tender advice to a witness about to appear before a Committee of the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1934; col. 719, Vol. 288.]
My right hon. Friend did not tell the House that this was a witness whose evidence was essential on an issue of fact. He did not tell the House what was the advice given to that witness—advice to clear out of the country before she appeared before the Committee, and that it was accompanied by the offer of a substantial monetary inducement.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I certainly consider myself blameworthy for having let my researches stop there in the pages of Erskine May.

Mr. AMERY: On so high a matter, the same standard which he has applied to Lord Macaulay should apply to him. He did not tell us that the other instances in which privilege was claimed all involved, if not corruption, at any rate intimidation or victimisation. I wish my right hon. Friend had been a little fuller in his researches, and a little less parcimonious in conveying information which was essential to the House in coming to a conclusion. I only want to refer to another point which he raised on that aspect of the matter, which was raised also in an interesting note of warning by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil). It is perfectly true that one can conceive the theoretical possibility of advice or persuasion being carried to wholly undue lengths. I can conceive the possibility of members of Select Committees, by a systematic policy of vigorous persuasion and copious hospitality, impairing the independent value of the evidence to be presented. I can also conceive the possibility of persons outside a Select Committee, being dissatisfied with the conclusions to which they fear that committee may come, organising a public campaign against those conclusions, and carrying that campaign to a point at which they might successfully intimidate the members of the Select Committee with the fear of losing their seats or their position in their own party. We can be glad to know that neither of those things happened here; Lancashire came to its final conclusion under no over-persuasion or over-feeding, but by its own honestly-formed conviction. Nor do I think that we have any reason to believe that either the Secretary of State or any other members of the Select Committee have been deflected from the course of duty by such meetings as either the India Defence League or the Union
of Britain and India have held in their constituencies.
May I now turn from answering these points to the broader issue raised by my right hon. Friend, to what he has described as the great and far-reaching issue at the root of this whole subject. It has a long antecedent history. Thirty-nine years ago this House decided, once and for all, I think, against the contention that Indian fiscal policy should be governed by any local British interests, when by an overwhelming majority it supported the then Secretary of State for India, Sir Henry Fowler, in his appeal to Members to regard themselves as Members for India, concerned with governing India in India's interest. Twenty-five years later a Joint Select Committee, whose report was commended to the House by the Government of which my right hon. Friend was a Member, and unanimously, I believe, accepted by the House, laid down that so-called fiscal convention which established India's fiscal autonomy. I think it is worth while reminding the House of the terms of the report of that Joint Select Committee. Here is their definition of what the fiscal convention meant. It was that the Secretary of State:
Should as far as possible avoid interference with India's fiscal policy when the Government of India and the legislature are in agreement, and his intervention should be limited to safeguarding the international obligations of the Empire or any fiscal arrangements within the Empire which His Majesty's Government may make.
There is no question of intervening in Lancashire's or any other particular interest in this country. Indeed, the Committee laid it down in so many words that India should
have the same liberty to consider her interests as have Great Britain, Australia, Canada and South Africa.
That principle, laid down 14 years ago, has been in full effect ever since, and neither Parliaments nor Governments have ever since then considered intervention in India's fiscal autonomy. The Statutory Commission certainly did not suggest any modification in that fiscal convention. Subsequently, we had the Ottawa Conference. There was no shadow of a hint at Ottawa that the Indian delegates were in any respect less free to accept or reject any proposals of preference than the delegates of this
country or any one of the Dominions. It was because of that freedom that they were willing to come to an agreement, and that India has shown herself willing to come to an agreement, which has been of great mutual benefit to both Indian and to British trade.
For many years past no responsible person in public life has ever suggested going back upon India's fiscal autonomy. My right hon. Friend laid an elaborate alternative scheme of reform before the Select Committee, but he did not include in it any suggestion that we should go back upon India's fiscal autonomy. It is quite true that when he was pressed by the Secretary of State and other Members of the Committee as to whether he did wish to modify the fiscal convention he gave a series of answers which I only wish there was time to read out to the House as exhibitions of adroit fencing and skill in avoiding committing himself to any definite declaration. The question of going back on India's fiscal autonomy never was, or could have been in any serious sense, an issue upon which the Select Committee could hesitate. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wished to see the elimination of passages in the Lancashire evidence which urged the reversal of India's fiscal autonomy he could not have been influenced by any fear of the effect of that evidence on the Select Committee. He could only have been influenced by his desire to help forward the interests of Lancashire. He only did his obvious duty, when pressed by Lancashire, in stating frankly and fearlessly what was the actual position. I go further. I think it was also the obvious duty of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping, and of other opponents of the White Paper who sincerely wished to save India from the dangers of over hasty constitutional advance, and who wished to help Lancashire, but who also knew the limits of what is politically possible, to join my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in dissuading their Lancashire friends from a course which could not have strengthened their case before the Select Committee, but could only have gravely impaired the prospects of Lancashire's trade with India.
Be that as it may, the business men of Lancashire for long refused to believe that fiscal autonomy was an established fact, and they made a determined effort
to secure its modification. For three months they belaboured and bombarded the Secretary of State. They failed to make any impression. That was the first chapter of the story revealed in the report. The next chapter opened with the arrival of an Indian gentleman, Mr. Mody, Chairman of the Bombay Mill-owners, whose persuasiveness and conciliatory manner' completely changed Lancashire and made the Manchester Chamber of Commerce decide to send a mission to India. The moment they did that their former evidence was obviously directly incompatible with their decision. That was obvious to the Secretary of State, and through Lord Derby he tried to warn Lancashire of the mistake they would make if, at the same time that their mission went to India, they published that evidence. He did not succeed. At the end of July the chamber repeated the declaration that it would make no change in the original memorandum "unless a situation arose which merited such a course." The third chapter is covered by the mission, and shows how such a situation did, in fact, arise. I have already dealt with that. I say no more than that the pressure of their own mission decided the chamber to alter their policy.
From first to last, whether in be-labouring the Secretary of State in April, May and June, or in rejecting Lord Derby's advice in July, or in modifying their memorandum in view of the attitude of their mission, the initiative and decision rested with the Manchester Chamber. We can admire both the pertinacity of their original effort and their good judgment in the conclusion to which they finally came. I confess that I cannot extend the same admiration to the judgment with which my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping built up so portentous an indictment on so weak a foundation, and on the pertinacity with which he still endeavours to maintain his charges. He demands publication of the evidence. I am not concerned to know what are the reasons which have decided the Committee against publication. I only know one thing, that the one reason which cannot have influenced the Committee is the fear that the evidence would not clearly, fully, and indisputably support their conclusions. With that I am prepared to rest content, and I advise my right hon. Friend also to rest content. I think he has not acted wisely. I doubt,
too, whether he is wise at this time in raising the abstract, the very disputable and doubtfully based contention contained in the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby). Whatever may be said for or against further investigation of those matters this is not the time for them, when we are concerned with one question and one question only, and that is whether we are to accept or reject the clear judgment of the Committee of Privileges.
May I say one thing more in conclusion? It has been said that what Lancashire says to-day all England will say to-morrow. Lancashire has now come to the conclusion that it is better to deal with India by a policy of co-operation and good will rather than by a policy of suspicion and compulsion. Should we not be well advised to bring that same spirit to our own wider problems? I am not going to say anything here about the attitude of this House towards the Indian problem as a whole. I am thinking rather of our attitude towards each other. I do not wish to minimise the importance of the differences that divide us. I know well that, whatever course we take, it is full of risks. But in approaching the greatest task ever set to human statesmanship should we not do so in a spirit worthy of our responsibilities and with an endeavour to understand each other's point of view? I should like to make my appeal in particular to those of my friends who differ from me over India, with so many of whom I am associated by long years of comradeship in political effort and in general identity of political outlook. Let me assure them that if I have arrived at the conclusion that the general policy of His Majesty's Government is one that I ought to support, it has not been without searchings of heart; it has not been without a realisation of the possibility that I may be mistaken, and that events may prove that policy to be unworkable. But I would also ask my friends to concede to me that if I believe that policy to be in all the circumstances the best it is not because I am by nature a pacifist, a sentimentalist, weak-kneed on issues of Empire, or even an undiscriminating, time-serving supporter of His Majesty's Government. Let them concede that this policy can be favoured by men who are every whit as determined to maintain the strength and unity of the Empire as they are, and who are ani-
mated not by loss of will or defeatism, but by a profound conviction that they are endeavouring to carry out those principles of policy and action upon which this Empire has been built up and maintained—and that they may just possibly prove to be right.
Meanwhile let us be glad that this lesser interlude of the Lancashire Memorandum has ended so satisfactorily for all concerned: in the first place for Lancashire, whose trade is of vital interest to everyone in this country; in the second place, for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who can now return to a task almost beyond human capacity, not only cleared of a grave charge but with the assurance that he carries with him, if not the agreement, at any rate the respect and the good will—I will add the admiration—of the whole House; and, last but not least, for my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping who, having now contributed, not only in connection with Camaret Bay but also in connection with Lancashire to the elucidation of what he himself has called "one of the mare's nests of history," is once more free to devote his high ability to the tremendous problems that still confront us in India.

5.32 p.m.

Lord HUGH CECIL: I am speaking with very great brevity this afternoon, not only because I depend as we are all bound to do, on the patience of my audience, but also consulting the state of my own health and strength; therefore, under the conjoint influence of egotistic and altruistic motives, I shall be very short.
My point of view is a little different from the point of view of the right hon. Gentlemen who have already addressed the House. They both seemed to think that what we are concerned about today is a matter of very great gravity. That has never been my opinion, from the beginning of the investigation until the present time. It is happily a matter of common agreement, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), out of his voluminous vocabulary, has now word upon word explained, that the honour of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and that of Lord Derby were not in the least involved. It is
quite clear that no such question arose at all and could not be thought to arise. No one could have thought that such a question arose. I am not able to agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping or my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery), that somehow or other the inquiry of the Committee of Privileges reflects either favourably or unfavourably as to whether the White Paper is a good scheme of constitutional reform. I cannot follow that connection of ideas. My judgment is still awaiting the report of the Select Committee; not because i think that it is a judicial body, but that it is a body of very able people who will, no doubt, say a great many things well worth listening to about the subject. I cannot see why the question whether the Secretary of State or Lord Derby did or did not commit a technical breach of privilege, can possibly influence the judgment of any human being as to the desirability or the undesirability of the reforms of the White Paper.
The question seems to be a narrow one, and to-day's discussion has already shown that it is narrower even than I have indicated. Even about the question of whether a breach of privilege has been committed or not, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping and the Committee are substantially agreed in regard to the main facts of what has taken place. My right hon. Friend makes a grievance that certain letters have not been published which he thinks ought to have been published. In regard to that matter I put a perfectly simple test: Would any rational human being, on considering the question whether a breach of privilege had been committed or not, have been influenced if all those letters had been published or if the whole evidence that we do not propose to publish had been published? I am sure that he would not. There would have been excited curiosity and a good deal of opportunity for misrepresentation—I am not thinking of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping and his friends, but of people of the opposite way of thinking, and not in this country only—and there would have been a prodigious opportunity for misunderstanding and misrepresentation and of quoting phrases out of their contexts, and a vast deal of harm would have been done which it
would have been quite impossible to overtake. All sorts of pernicious ideas would have got a start. Therefore, the Members of the Committee of Privileges were, from the moment they began to consider the question, perfectly clear that publication would not be in the public interest. As to the particulars, they would not have changed the opinion of any rational human being as to the question of breach of privilege. I include in that category my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping himself.
I am quite sure that the reason why my right hon. Friend disagrees with us is not because of this particular phrase or that particular phrase in a letter, but because he thinks that the distinction between judicial and non-judicial is an unsound one. That is a matter perfectly fit for argument, but it has nothing to do with the publication of anything. If you take other views of what the Committee ought or ought not to do, no publication would have changed your opinion one way or the other. If you take the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping that it was a judicial body which ought to behave like judges in the King's Bench, You could have found that the members of the Select Committee who are involved acted in a very unusual way. I have not collected an anthology of the sayings of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping about the Select Committee, but I apprehend that if he had said the same things about the Court of King's Bench he would long ago have been heavily fined and, not impossibly, imprisoned. I cannot go the whole length of my right hon. Friend and say that it was a judicial body. No one has ever treated it as a judicial body; nor can you reasonably say that it is, in the true sense of the word, an impartial body. You do not make a body impartial by mixing up conflicting partialities. Parliament in its wisdom brought the Indian Committee into existence and put on it a variety of people well known to hold a variety of opinions, and left them to come to a report, and to fight it out among themselves. Accordingly, to treat the Committee as a judicial body in the sense in which you treat the Court of King's Bench as a judicial body is absurd. Certainly it ought to be fair, but fairness is quite a different thing from impartiality. Fairness is a
moral quality; it is an act of will, and it is subject to the review of conscience. Impartiality is the act of the intellect, and uses the understanding. Therefore the two things are quite different.
If you are aiming at being impartial, as my right hon. Friend says, seclude yourself from all sorts of influences which might disturb the difficult and, to many people, the anxious task of making up your mind judicially on a set of facts; but to be fair you have only to be an honest man acting in good faith. A committee like the Indian Committee is bound to be fair, but it cannot possibly be expected to be impartial, and it may therefore do all sorts of things that a judge would find very inconsistent with arriving at perfect impartiality, without being subject to any blame. My right hon. Friend the Member for Epping urges that we might have found the Secretary of State and Lord Derby guilty of a technical breach of privilege. Technical breaches of law do sometimes arise, but whenever they arise they are a mark of bad law—it may be unavoidably bad law. Legislators, like other people, are imperfect and they could not make a perfect law. Of a theoretically perfect law there could not be a technical breach. A law expresses some principle of morality or some counsel of public expediency, and either that principle of morality or that counsel of expediency is invaded or it is not. If it is invaded, a man ought to be under the animadversion of the law; if it is not, he ought to be acquitted before the law. Technical breaches ought never to arise.
In this position, as my right hon. Friend says, we were faced with a new question, so far as we could discover, which never had been brought to the notice of a committee examining privilege before. The particular point at issue had never been raised. Only in the sense that you make law when you come to a decision we had to make law, and not only law; we had to make what must be rational law, which could be carried out in accordance with the great commonsense of this House and of the public. Not in this instance only, but in countless instances before select committees, people have been advised as to how their evidence was to be given, assistance has been given to them to draw it up, and the like has been done.
At what point are you to say that legitimate persuasion and legitimate assistance come within what the Sessional Order calls "deterring"? Hon. Members must remember the date at which the Order was made; you must consider the date if you want to understand the meaning. There is no doubt what people were thinking about in 1700—they were thinking about corruption. Sir, five years before then, one of your predecessors in the Chair had had to put the question as to whether he had been guilty of corrupt practices, and he had to say that the Ayes had it because not a single voice had been raised for the Noes; and a Lord President of the Council, very unlike my right hon. Friend, was driven out of office by a similar accusation of corruption.
There is not the least doubt about what they meant in 1700. They meant corrupt tampering, and that they would be quite ready to impeach before the House of Lords anyone who so tampered with witnesses. Fancy our impeaching my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India. Fancy my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping as one of the managers conducting the impeachment. If we had wanted to try to make the doctrine of privileges an absurdity and an archaic laughing-stock, we could, to adopt the language that has been used, solemnly consider the matter and solemnly absolve each time it happens, anyone guilty of a technical breach. Where you are inquiring into political reform and not exercising jurisdiction, you are proceeding as this House proceeds, with perfect freedom of persuasion. This House itself prays every day when it assembles to be delivered from partial affection. In the same sense, no doubt, a Select Committee ought to be free from partial affection. But that does not mean, of course, that our constituents do not try to persuade us to all sorts of things. I am not quite sure that they do not go a good deal nearer to the evil point of deterrence by applying genuine pressure to us to make us vote against our consciences. How can it be reasonably said that, in a Committee which is to be ancillary to this process of legislation, which is to be the first stage of legislation that is afterwards to come before the House itself, any persuasion ad-
dressed to witnesses before such a Committee is a breach of the privileges of the House? It is merely persuasion, and in the final stages it is just as dangerous as in the initial stages. The whole process is one of forming a sound opinion about a legislative problem, and persuasion is a perfectly legitimate instrument to use.
In the paragraph for which I am myself responsible, I draw attention to something which would not constitute in the least degree a Parliamentary offence, or the lest breach of privilege, but would destroy the usefulness of a Parliamentary inquiry if persuasion got beyond a certain point. It is true that what you want when you hold an inquiry into someone's opinion is that he should give you his own opinion, and not that which someone else has persuaded him for the moment to hold. Spontaneity of opinion is what is of importance—not correctness, not wisdom, but that that man, possibly that fool, should express his own opinion. I thought it necessary to add a word of caution lest Committees should in the future allow any degree of persuasion which would not, indeed, be a breach of privilege, but which would largely destroy the utility of their inquiry. In doing that I was thinking quite genuinely of the future. I am not nearly so much interested as my right hon. Friends are in their present task of scratching one another's eyes out. I always regretted that the matter should be presented to the Committee of Privileges or to this House as a kind of duel between two distinguished right hon. Gentlemen who were each anxious to prove that the other was undeserving of the confidence of the public. In my view we ought to think only of our machinery of privilege, and I am quite sure that the machinery of privilege ought to be regulated partly by the old law of breach of privilege and partly by certain conventions and customs which ought to surround the working of Select Committees.
I could not support the Amendment which I see is on the Paper, because it seems to me to seek to do by definite enactment or resolution what can only be done by public opinion. Let us remember that the most important institution in the country, the Cabinet, is almost entirely regulated by convention, by custom, by practice; and, in the same
way, I think that in the future Select Committees might regulate their proceedings according to a convention which would exclude the possibility of over-persuasion. That is the whole purpose of the paragraph which I persuaded my right hon. Friends to allow me to insert in the report. In that way, by the facile and supple machinery of convention and custom, we can keep Select Committees to their proper task of eliciting opinion in these matters, and not restrict them in respect of persuasion further than it is really to the advantage of their own inquiry that they should be restricted. The members of the Committee have had a long and laborious task. My right hon. Friend the Member for Epping thinks it would have been quite a good plan if, as soon as we had listened to him, we had said, "No breach of privilege arises, and there is an end of the matter."

Mr. CHURCHILL: I did not say that it would be a good plan.

Lord H. CECIL: It was a plan that we might have adopted if we took the view of the matter that we did. What a speech my right hon. Friend would have made on it; how we should have been accused of stifling the plot, of keeping the truth which would have been disclosed by a fuller inquiry from the public eye. We held the full inquiry; we arrived at all the facts necessary to determine whether a breach of privilege was committed or not; and, with the exceptions which I have already mentioned, my right hon. Friend does not deny that we went thoroughly into the facts, and have published a summary which represents in broad outline the very things that he has always said. He is anxious to claim a sort of prior copyright in our statement of the main facts which we elicited. Does not that conclude the whole matter?
So far as the facts are relevant to the question of breach of privilege, the facts are not really in dispute at all. The whole question turns on whether you are going to act according to principles of common sense, and say, that when you appoint a body to frame a scheme of legislative reform and inquire into various matters, you are not going to give it the character of a judicial body and surround it with all the checks and precautions which properly surround a judicial
tribunal. I am persuaded that every fair-minded person, every intelligent person, who looks at it in the true light, will come to the conclusion that we were wise in our report. Let me sum it up. There is no question of honour involved; no question of honour was raised. There is, in my judgment, no great political issue involved. I cannot imagine anyone changing his mind on any great political issue because of anything that is in our report or that appeared before us in evidence. What, then, have we done? We have done something that interests me very much, because I have always been interested in questions of Parliamentary procedure. We have added, I must not say a chapter, but perhaps a page, perhaps a mere footnote, to that memorable work on Parliamentary practice by Sir Erskine May. I think the House will conclude with me, in accepting the Motion to-day, that it is, after all, a wise and instructive page, or perhaps only a wise and instructive footnote.

5.54 p.m.

Mr. ATTLEE: It is too seldom that we have the privilege of hearing the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), and we all wish that his health allowed him to take a greater part in our Debates, because, with whatever subject he deals, he illuminates it. I have not risen with any idea that it is possible for me to supplement the arguments which the Noble Lord has laid before the House, but merely in order that there should be no mistake that this is a meeting of the House of Commons, and not a meeting at the Friends' Meeting House. We do not regard this matter as a controversy between two right hon. Gentlemen. We on this side are not concerned in the slightest degree in the controversies between Members of the same party on broad questions of policy. But the Committee of Privileges is, to my mind, a judicial body, in contradistinction to the Joint Select Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform, and it is bound to make up its mind on the facts laid before it. I consider that, on the facts as laid before the Committee, no other finding was possible.
The whole pith of the matter lies in the question as to what kind of tribunal, if it be a tribunal, the Joint Select Committee is, and what is the nature of the evidence laid before it. I am sure that,
if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) had thought beforehand of the composition of the Joint Select Committee, he would have known that it could not be regarded in any way as judicial. With a certain number of exceptions, its members were placed there because of their knowledge of Indian problems, and every member was expected to make himself fully acquainted with all sides of the problem. That is a very different situation from that of a judge, who has to confine himself to matters which are brought before him. In the second place, on the question of the kind of evidence that was brought before the Committee, if the right hon. Gentleman had thought of his own evidence before the Joint Select Committee, it was a valuable opinion of an experienced statesman on a great problem. There was no evidence of facts. That is all that the right hon. Gentleman laid before us, and, if he had taken advice from anyone, and that advice had led him to modify his opinion in any way, nobody could complain; it would only have been that the right hon. Gentleman had been persuaded, or that he had become more instructed.
In fact, in any consideration of the kind of evidence that is to be given before a Joint Select Committee, it is quite obvious that there is consultation, and I think the House ought to realise that probably the trouble in this matter has arisen owing to a false nomenclature being applied to the proceedings before the Joint Select Committee. The people who come to give evidence are not witnesses in the ordinary sense of the word. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) gave us evidence out of the wealth of his experience. What he really gave us were the views of an expert in government. Then there is a multitude of people who come there as advocates to stake out some claim, and they are advised by people as to how best they can bring their case forward. This, it seems to me, is a great difference, and I think I may say, as one who is outside any party controversy on this matter, that perhaps the mistake has partly arisen from an over-emphasis in some quarters of the semi-judicial composition of the Joint Select Committee.
I do not pretend, when I am on that Committee, to be in the position of a judge who comes there without any preconceptions whatever. I happen to have had some experience of looking into Indian constitutional matters, and I have also certain political views; and I never pretended for a moment that I left all those outside the door, nor does anybody else. The true fact of the matter is that, as is stated in this report, the work of the Joint Select Committee is part of a legislative process, and is not a judicial process. Everyone knows to-day that, when we are engaged in the work of legislation in this House, all kinds of people will come to us and put certain points of view before us and ask us to advocate certain claims. We do not immediately get up in the House and say, "I have received a statement from these people, and am going to read it to the House." We advise them as to how it should be put, and we put it before the House in the way in which we think, if we agree with their claims, it is most likely to get a favourable reception from the House. Every Member does that. The fact is that this Joint Select Committee is part of a legislative process, doing a detailed piece of work for the House which could not well be done on the Floor of the House itself.
Therefore, I suggest to the House that this report is one which does not concern the rights or wrongs of the White Paper, which is not concerned with whether the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping ir right, or whether the Secretary of State for India is right, or whether they are both wrong. I might perhaps hold the view that they are both wrong. The issue of India is not raised by this matter at all. The whole question really is whether the work that is done for this House by a Joint Select Committee is of the nature of a judicial tribunal or is part of the legislative process. In common with my colleagues on the Committee, I came to the conclusion that it was part of the legislative process. The two matters are entirely different, and I think the Noble Lord has put it so clearly that I hope we shall get the unanimous support of the House.

6.1 p.m.

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: It must be a matter of regret to the whole House as much as it is to me that
my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) is not present to express, on his own behalf and on behalf of the Liberal party, his views on the issues that are being discussed to-day. In his absence, it falls to me to explain that, before he left the country, the Committee of Privileges had reached the final stage of its deliberations, that the other members of the Committee were unanimously of the opinion that he need not delay his departure, already once postponed, and that he is in complete agreement with all the conclusions of the Committee. I do not wish to dwell upon the criticisms that have been made on the conduct of the Secretary of State for India. He has shown in the discharge of his responsibilities, such faith in the policy of freedom for India with safeguards—a policy which my Noble Friend Lord Reading was the first to propound at the first Round Table Conference—and such courage, determination and resource as has commanded the admiration of the great majority of the House and of all the Members who sit upon these benches.
I have never shared the opinion that has been expressed by the Lord President of the Council—indeed, I associate myself with what has been said on this subject by the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition and the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil)—that the India Joint Select Committee has in any special degree a judicial character. It has never seemed to me that the deliberations of the Joint Select Committee could relieve the Government of one iota of its responsibility for its Indian policy. But the Secretary of State has never shirked his share of that responsibility. On the contrary, during the proceedings of the Joint Select Committee he has exposed himself with brilliant success to a cross-examination of unprecedented length and thoroughness upon the details and the implications of his policy. He has other heavy and multifarious responsibilities for the conduct of the King's business in India and for the reconciliation of Lancashire and India in the common interest of the two peoples. We, therefore, rejoice that the verdict of the Committee has exonerated and justified him in the discharge of his duties in every capacity.
We on these benches, however, are mainly concerned about the future of our
relations with the people of India. Nearly three quarters of the population of the British Empire live in that country. We are also concerned to foster those sentiments of good will and helpful co-operation which have, fortunately, been growing in recent months and so favourably influencing the relations between the people of India and the people of that sorely stricken county of Lancashire. We, therefore, welcome the report of the Committee not, as the Noble Lord said, as reflecting on the soundness or unsoundness of the Government policy, but as removing an impediment to the development of that policy. Already there has been in our view too much delay in the work of the Joint Select Committe. We hear rumours that the report will not be available till the autumn. Delay breeds mistrust, and we dread its effect upon opinion in India and the opportunities which it will afford to those who wish to subvert the policy of the Government. We shall, therefore, give our support to the Government tonight in the expectation that all its resources will be resolutely employed to bring its Indian policy to speedy fulfilment.

6.5 p.m.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: I am sure the House is gratified to have heard from the various leaders of parties that the report before the House is accepted. I associate myself with those general views and share the satisfaction of the House that the report clears those mentioned in it from any reflection of a breach of Privilege. I should like to thank the right hon Baronet who has just spoken for having reminded us that this policy emanated so largely from the brilliant inception of Lord Reading, a fact which I hope my friend will always remember, and I only doubt one phrase in his otherwise, very accurate description where he said the Secretary of State had been working for the freedom of India with safeguards, because I think it has been in the past and still will be found, that that is the very issue on which Lancashire business men very largely disagree with the views that he expressed. The Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), whose intervention in the Debate everybody welcomed, made in his brilliant con-
tribution one or two points to which I think I must reply. I think he misinterpreted the desire of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) that the evidence should be published. I thought it was only certain evidence dealing with correspondence which had nothing to do with the national interest, and, if no question of the national interest is involved, there seems to me do reason why it should not be published.
The Noble Lord said the Select Committee could not be regarded as being impartial, a fact which we had noted, although some of us were aware of that fact from the start. He said they had to make what practically amounts to a new law. I think what he really meant was that they had to indicate a new precedent. I could hardly imagine that there is anyone who does not seriously think that we must really clarify the position with regard to future questions of this kind. The Noble Lord mentioned that the statement at the end of the report included at his request indicated that something was necessary. He said it was merely a footnote. It is a pious opinion and it does not help very much unless the House now or at some early date is going to take note of those remarks which were not dissented from by his colleagues but which appear to be very germane to the question before the House. With regard to the Secretary of State, I regret that some of us who are associated with him on other questions could not share his views upon this subject. I only wish he had seen the danger to our industry in Lancashire a little earlier and had taken a more active part in seeing that the situation did not arise with which we are now confronted. Although I differ from the right hon. Gentleman profoundly on the Indian problem, he knows how much I have always appreciated his great courtesy to myself, and I do not believe anyone has ever for a moment doubted the honour and integrity and the desire to do rightly of himself and Earl Derby. What has been exercising the mind of many of us is the dual capacity of Members in such a situation and whether it is possible that such dual capacity may not conform with the traditions of complete detachment which up to now I admit I have regarded as essential in those who were connected with a vital Committee of this kind.
May I commit an unpardonable error—I can only thus express my own views—and explain my personal case with regard to the Select Committee. I was invited to join it, and before I gave my answer I took counsel with some friends of mine who thought alike on the Indian question, seven of whom were Privy Councillors and all men of great experience in this country. I asked them these two questions, because it was a very difficult decision for any man to have to take. I asked them, "If I join the Select Committee, can I continue to address public gatherings or party conferences in opposition to the White Paper, and can I continue to help to advise or, if one could, to influence the decisions of the India Defence Parliamentary Committee," a body with which I was associated and which, after the private Members' Motion that I introduced, I had taken a part in initiating? The answer was unanimous and emphatic that I could not with honour exercise either of those functions.
It appears from all that has transpired—it shows how easily one can be misled—that we were perhaps over meticulous in the interpretation of the traditions and precedents of the House. Not only apparently could I have continued to persuade any of my friends as to what course to pursue, but I might have addressed committees and influential dinner parties on the subject. They might seek my advice upon vital evidence, and I might have done all in my power to persuade them reasonably to change not only the letter of the evidence in regard to a word here and there, but the whole basic foundation of that evidence. I might have had conversations in this direction, for instance, with the representatives of the Princes and with those who are going to give evidence about police reforms in India, as well as industrial leaders in Lancashire. Again, I might have endeavoured not only to persuade them to alter their decision, but completely to change the whole foundation of their argument. Provided that I was not successful in my endeavour, I should still be free from any question and it would appear that, even if I had deflected them from their basic purpose, I might still have been guiltless, and only if I had bribed or threatened them, or over-persuaded them, should I really have been at fault. I am no lawyer. I am only a
plain, dense, ordinary, British public man and this shatters my whole conception as to what a member of a Select Committee could or could not do in these circumstances. Clearly my letter declining the invitation of the Secretary of State was written under a complete misapprehension. Although he corrected me on another point, he did not point out to me that I was wrong in the position that I took up.
May I give a further example which actually happened? Prior to the setting up of the Select Committee I was in Indian matters in close contact with several gentlemen, including Lord Salisbury, the late Lord Burnham, and other members of the Select Committee. From the day that that Committee was set up I have had no communication with any one of them on any single issue with regard to India. I thought that it would be an affront to Lord Salisbury to ask him, as I wanted to do on one or two occasions, to advise or to give me his opinion, and I felt that I should have been guilty of inappropriate, if not improper, action if I had approached him or any of his colleagues on any subject which was then before the Select Committee. Again here apparently I might have sought their advice, and I might have received it, and it would have been perfectly proper. Indeed, I now see that I might in reality have joined the Committee and continued to take definite sides on points under discussion outside the Committee, as did the Secretary of State with the witnesses from Lancashire, and as did the Under-Secretary in party conferences in the country.
As a House of Commons man, having been in this House for a quarter of a century, I feel that Parliament needs further guidance upon this question. Surely it must be conceivable that you might have a situation where you have not got great, tried and trusted leaders whose position has been questioned to-day but gentlemen of a very different calibre, and I submit that we cannot easily leave the matter exactly where it is. In order fully to understand this case I must also refer back to the history of this question. I see that my right hon. Friend has returned. I was trying to be polite to him a little earlier, but I express my pain on this occasion because I differ from him. I say frankly that I entirely differ from the whole thesis he laid down.
I think that this House is absolutely free to deal with this question anew in view of the complete revolution in the whole treatment of Indian subjects. When the first White Paper was commended to this House by the Prime Minister, British trading and commercial interests—I do not think I am exaggerating when I say it—were absolutely ignored, and in the Debate I called attention to the fact that the Prime Minister had not found time to say anything about the future of Lancashire and British trade which seemed to me to be one of the overwhelming questions we had to decide. Not unnaturally it was expected that when the more definite proposals were put in what we now call the White Paper, great stress would have been laid upon the imperative need of maintaining reciprocal trade with India. Indeed, with the spirit of Ottawa surrounding us on all hands, it would seem almost inconceivable that in any great constitutional reforms of this character we should fail to insist upon a permanent preferential basis of trade. After all, the whole of India's great position as a collection of nations and an exporting country has been built up by British initiative and British shipping.

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think we ought to enter upon this subject on this occasion. This Motion deals only with the report of the Committee of Privileges.

Sir H. CROFT: May I, with the greatest respect, submit that the whole of the question of the report hangs on the position of Lancashire under the proposed constitutional reforms, and that I am entitled to show, as proving the magnitude of the case, that Lancashire must be more concerned than any other section of the community with the fact that this trade between this country and India is entirely complementary?

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not quite see what that has to do with the report, which is only concerned as to whether a breach of privilege has been committed.

Sir H. CROFT: May I, then, ask if I am not entitled to discuss the actual words in the report which the Secretary of State used in connection with this great country and about which the whole discussion has taken place? May I not
use the actual words in the report and draw conclusions from those words?

Mr. SPEAKER: Of course, the hon. and gallant Member can use the words contained in the report, but not, I think, with the object he has in view.

Sir H. CROFT: I am extremely sorry if I have in any way transgressed the Parliamentary Rules with regard to this matter, but it occurred to me that since the whole subject which we are discussing here to-day is round this great question of Lancashire, it is rather necessary that we should understand how deep were the feelings of those people in Lancashire and how strong were the arguments, therefore, which the Secretary of State had to use in order to influence Lancashire opinion. I will endeavour, however, to avoid going into the matter in any further detail. We have discussed, in the speeches to which we have just listened, the Fiscal Convention in India, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) raised the point to which I am trying to refer. I submit that under that Fiscal Convention our commercial fate was committed to a British Finance Minister in India who himself was responsible to a British-controlled Council in India, all under the aegis of the Secretary of State in this country. It is proposed, as we are told in the White Paper, to abandon all control, with one small exception, to which I will in a moment refer, and therefore an entirely new situation is contemplated.

Mr. SPEAKER: I really do not think that this has any bearing on the report, which only has to deal with one specific point, namely, as to whether a breach of privilege has been committed. That really has very little to do with the Government of India.

Sir H. CROFT: I must bow to your Ruling. I would only submit, in all innocence, that the point I am making is in answer to speeches which have been delivered by the four last speakers, but if I am not allowed to pursue the question, obviously there is no more to be said about it. May I say in conclusion that this report has a very definite effect on the whole future of principles governing the Select Committee? I, for one, never believed that a Member of the Select Committee had the freedom which is laid down in this report. I believe,
and, in fact, I know that apart from the merits of this question, a great number of Members in this House of all parties are very uneasy that we are laying down a precedent which may for all time govern the decisions of this House. We have learnt with very great interest in this report that the Committee must not be regarded in any way as a judicial Committee. We have been told that Members of that Committee were completely committed to a form of policy before the Committee was set up. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] I will read the exact words:
The Joint Committee are not in the ordinary sense a judicial body. They are concerned with questions partly of policy and expediency and partly of constitutional theory and practice. The Members were chosen by Parliament in the full light of the knowledge that many of them had already formed opinions as to the proposals contained in the White Paper.
I submit with all deference that these two admissions completely vindicate the line taken by my friends and myself in this House on the appointment of the Select Committee. Although I regret that I am not permitted on this occasion to deal with the vital issue which concerns this whole question, I beg Members of this House to consider whether it is in the interests of Parliament in this country, with all the dangerous reactions we see around us, that we should leave this question of Select Committees in such a vague position as it is to-day. I cannot help feeling that it would be in the interests of the House that it should be more clearly defined in order that when Members are approached in future to join Select Committees they should not be, as I was, under a complete misapprehension as to what a Member of a Select Committee can and what he cannot do.

6.26 p.m.

Sir J. SIMON: I trust that at the conclusion of to-day's discussion the House will be prepared, without a dissenting voice, to adopt the report of the Committee of Privileges. I desire to make a few remarks not as a Member of the Government, for there is no issue in this Debate between the Government and any section of the House, but as a Member of the House of Commons, rather an old Member now, and a Member who, like others here, is deeply interested in maintaining the sound rules of Parliamentary life and is earnestly desirous that they
should not be exploited in the interests of any person or any section, whatever.
And now may I direct attention to the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) earlier in the afternoon? I think that the speech which he made, meticulously prepared as it was and eloquently delivered, none the less left the majority of the House with a feeling of disappointment. He had an opportunity, and I believe that I speak for more than myself when I say that we wish very much that he had taken it. He thought it to be his duty two months ago to make the gravest allegations against a Member of this House and a Member of another place, and put forward his allegations, I do not doubt, in good faith, and he very carefully warned us that it was only a prima facie case. But after two months we have the report of a Committee, which consists, it is admitted, of some of the principal authorities and most respected Members of the House drawn from all quarters, unanimously declaring that no breach of privilege had been committed, relieving my right hon. Friend of what necessarily was a very grievous charge. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman had not one word to say of satisfaction with the result, or of congratulation to the Secretary of State for India. It appeared to me that the right hon. Gentleman was more concerned to defend himself, and since he desires to' take up that position, I am going to take leave to examine very shortly the case he attempted to make in his own defence today. I have no more materials than any other Member of this House, that is to say, I have, on the one hand, the speech which the right hon. Gentleman made on the 16th April, which I have re-read, and the report of the Committee of Privileges, which I received, like anybody else, in the course of last Saturday.
If one examines the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman when he introduced this matter and moved that it be referred to the Committee of Privileges, and if one sets side by side with that the unanimous findings of the Committee of Privileges, it is not very difficult to get to the heart of this matter and to find where my right hon. Friend made his error. It seems to me that in the realm of fact he made three cardinal errors.
The first of them has been already pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery). The right hon. Gentleman presented this matter to the House two months ago as though the difference which undoubtedly existed between the Secretary of State for India and a section, which at times is the prevailing section of Manchester opinion, arose out of evidence which Manchester proposed to give. He said, in column 714 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, of the 16th April:
As soon as the forecast and outline of this evidence reached the Secretary of State for India, sharp differences of opinion arose between him and the then President of the Chamber of Commerce."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1934; col. 714, Vol. 288.]
He presented the case to the House as though matters were going along with the most agreeable unanimity until, in the month of April of last year—it is very odd how long it is since these events occurred before they were brought to the notice of the House—the Secretary of State gets wind of some testimony that Manchester proposed to give. That, as the Committee of Privileges pointed out, is with all respect to my right hon. Friend, a completely false and absolutely unhistoric view of the matter.
The question—we cannot discuss it here; it was touched upon by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft)—whether the Lancashire cotton trade in the Indian market should receive any and, if so, what degree of statutory security, is a very old question. It goes back to the days when Lord Salisbury was Secretary of State for India in the Government of Mr. Disraeli. It was the topic, as my right hon. Friend reminded the House, of a most famous debate and a well remembered speech of Sir Henry Fowler. It was the subject of a very closely argued discussion, I think in the year 1917, when my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain) was Secretary of State for India. It is a topic which was dealt with in a paragraph of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, and, if anyone thinks it worth while to look it up, it was dealt with in a document which is sometimes called the Simon Report. The fact of the matter is that, so far from this being a new issue which stirred up the Secretary of State into activity and protest because
evidence was going to be given, these two views—one which had long been entertained in certain sections, sometimes the prevailing section of Manchester opinion, and the other view which had been held not by the present Secretary of State only but by Indian Secretaries of State in a series of administrations—constitute a perfectly well known classical and established problem of policy.
The statement which the right hon. Gentleman made in his speech of the 16th April presented to the House a case as if the activity of the Secretary of State in this matter had something to do with evidence that was going to be given. May I give the House one illustration to show to what amazing lengths he went in that regard? After he made his speech, and while the Indian Secretary was making his short statement to the House, my right hon. Friend interposed to say:
I shall submit to the Committee of Privileges for proof that the right hon. Gentleman on 5th May wrote his first letter to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce warning them of the kind of evidence they should not give."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1934; col. 727, Vol. 288.]

Mr. CHURCHILL: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that that is not an accurate and truthful statement?

Sir J. SIMON: I certainly do, and for the very reason that I have the true version in the Report of the Committee of Privileges. If the House will be good enough to look at the report they will find on page 9, in paragraph 9, the following statement:
On 5th May, Sir Samuel Hoare wrote a letter which was described to your Committee by one of the members of the Chamber of Commerce as a 'bombshell.' It was in reply to Mr. Bond's letter of 12th April, and it contained an intimation that it was not possible for the Government to include in their proposals for the Indian Constitution any provision having the effect of reserving power to limit the right of the Indian Legislature to impose tariffs on British goods.
Therefore, the true contents of the letter, as appears from the Report of the Committee of Privileges, is not a letter warning the Chamber of Commerce of the kind of evidence they should not give, but is stating a thing perfectly plainly to the Manchester Chamber of Com-
merce, and. saying: "I am very sorry; we may have different views, but this is the view the Government take, and it will not be possible for the Government to include in their proposals any provision having the effect of reserving power to limit the right of the Indian Legislature to impose tariffs on British goods."
The House has only to turn again to the report and they will find that two days before this letter was written, on the 3rd April, there was a deputation from the Manchester Chamber of Commerce which came to see my right hon. Friend.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Not two days, but a month before.

Sir J. SIMON: I am much obliged; it was a month before. The object of the deputation was to inquire whether any steps could be taken to ensure favourable tariff treatment in India for Lancashire cotton goods. With respect to this matter the report says:
Various suggestions were made, and Sir Samuel Hoare, while advising the deputation against pressing for anything that might seem inconsistent with India's fiscal autonomy, said that he did not wish to prevent them from putting their proposals before the Joint Committee if they wished to proceed further.
What is the good of going on pretending that the Indian Secretary at that time was engaged in putting pressure upon the Manchester Chamber of Commerce as to what sort of evidence they should not give? It is perfectly manifest that he was making a declaration similar to declarations made many times before by different Secretaries of State in turn. He was saying to them: "Put forward what case you think right, but I tell you plainly, in answer to your request to myself and Mr. Runciman, that the Government cannot do anything which would be inconsistent with India's fiscal autonomy."

Major-General Sir ALFRED KNOX: Will the right hon. Gentleman read the letter which the Secretary of State wrote on the 17th of July, marked "Private and Confidential"?

Sir J. SIMON: The hon. and gallant Member will find that I shall not forget that, but I think he will agree that it is better to deal with one point at a time. It was inaccurate to suppose that the Indian Secretary's activity in this matter was brought about by the probability or
the knowledge that evidence was about to be given.
Now I take the second point, and one which has been dealt with in a most amusing fashion by my right hon. Friend this afternoon. It is the famous dinner which was held on 27th June last year at Derby House. When my right hon. Friend presented his case to the House of Commons and moved that it be referred to the Committee of Privileges, this dinner was one of the most important items, one of the most important clauses in the indictment. My right hon. Friend has all the qualities of a picturesque but inaccurate historian. He has the power of visualising these things and of presenting them in personal and therefore in interesting terms, which everybody envies. His idea was, and he did not fail to convey it to the House, that the Indian Secretary got hold of Lord Derby, and it was arranged, as a result of the solicitations of my right hon. Friend, that these innocent Manchester merchants should be asked to a dinner. As they were going to dine at Derby House, no doubt they would have a good dinner, they would have good food, good wine and good smokes, and when they had been reduced, in the course of this hospitable evening, to a condition of innocent receptability, then, says the right hon. Gentleman with that dramatic passion which we all so much admire, painting this horrible picture with a very heavily coloured brush—then comes the Secretary of State and pours the poison into their ears.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I never said anything of the kind. It is a pure effort of imaginative fabrication.

Sir J. SIMON: If I have been able to rival my right hon. Friend in that respect it will always be a matter of gratification to me. Let me read the passage. Let the House listen to what the right hon. Gentleman did say. These were his blood-curdling words:
What would be said if a tribunal of judges were trying a case about which there was a keen public controversy, and on which very large issues—immeasurable issues—depended. and if one or more of the judge", hearing from the Government that inconvenient evidence was likely to be tendered by important witnesses, sought them out, got into touch with them, invited them to dinner, induced them to transform their evidence and to alter the evidence which they had already manifested their intention
to submit—what would have been thought of that? "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1934; col. 720, Vol. 288.]
I will tell the House what would have been thought of that. That is a fabrication if you like, for the date in question, as the House will recollect, was the 27th June. Anyone who has gone through the Report of the Committee of Privileges and who will be good enough to look at page 14, at the top they will find this statement—the unanimous verdict of the Committee of Privileges:
Up to this time there is no ground for any suggestion that, with a view to the alteration of the evidence, any advice had been given or any pressure exerted.
If the House will look back they will find that the time referred to was the 12th July. The right hon. Gentleman when he introduced this matter to the House informed the House of the fact that there was a dinner arranged in order that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State might bring influence on the Chamber of Commerce in respect of evidence they were going to give. There is not a syllable or fraction of truth in it. Indeed, the right hon. Member is so conscious of the fact that this particular charge is without foundation, that he was graceful enough not to repeat it. I was amused to hear him say with reference to the dinner at Derby House that it had now receded into the background.

Mr. CHURCHILL: It has done.

Sir J. SIMON: Now I come to the third error. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that an attempt can equally involve a breach of privilege as success in achieving it, but he certainly presented to the House the view that when Manchester came and substituted a new version of its evidence this was a triumph of what he called continuous, persuasive, pervading pressure on the part of the Indian Secretary and Lord Derby.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Hear, hear.

Sir J. SIMON: Nothing is clearer from the report of the Committee that there is not a word of truth in that suggestion. It is perfectly plain from the report of the Committee that when the Manchester Chamber of Commerce mission was proceeding to negotiate in India for trading facilities the representatives of Manchester in India were the people who became impressed with the fact that the
giving of this proposed evidence certainly would not serve Manchester's turn. It was not the Secretary of State at all; it was the mission in India, and the report of the Committee of Privileges sets out the matter in detail.
It appears that the Manchester Mission in India made two suggestions. The first suggestion they made to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce was that rather than withdraw the evidence which they had filed they should seek to arrange that the evidence should never be given and that the document should ultimately find itself buried in the Blue Books of the evidence of the proceedings of the Joint Select Committee when it was finally made available to the public. But that, of course, was not a practical suggestion. They could not print in a Blue Book, months later, evidence which had never been given at all. But the point is: What was the reason? The reason was because the Manchester Mission in India had become conscious that it would not assist the Manchester case if that evidence were given. Thereupon they made a second suggestion. They said: "If you cannot do it that way, how would it be to add to the testimony which is filed a second part which will be full of warm references to the desirability of adjustments, friendliness and good will, and all the rest of it? "That, also, was not a very good suggestion. You cannot offer evidence to a Committee consisting of two perfectly contradictory parts, like one of those heraldic beasts consisting partly of leopard and partly of goat. You must have a consistent line, and it was the Manchester Chamber of Commerce itself, faced with the fact that its own representatives in India did not like the evidence which had been given, said: "We will substitute other evidence," and that other evidence is the evidence of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce.
I think that I have put before the House as clearly as I can three of the cardinal errors which were made when the case was presented. But I must be allowed to say that, whatever may be the errors of the right hon. Member for Epping in matters of fact, they are nothing to the wildness and irrelevancy of his assertions in matters of precedent. He told the House of Commons that:
Since the word 'tamper' may raise a qualm in some minds, I may say that Erskine May contains precedents which show that no question of corruption is necessary for the word 'tamper' or the validity of the Sessional Order.
Then we come to this sentence, which shows how carefully the right hon. Gentleman had studied precedents:
There was a case in 1809 where a gentleman was proceeded against by the House of Commons on the ground of tampering, when all he had done was to tender advice to a witness about to appear before a Committee of the House."—[OFFICIAI, REPORT, 16th April, 1934; col. 719, Vol. 288.]

Mr. CHURCHILL: Read the account in Erskine May.

Sir J. SIMON: That is a very impressive paragraph. 1809 was a famous year—

Mr. CHURCHILL: We all know that.

Sir J. SIMON: It was the year of Corunna, of Talavera, of the birth of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Tennyson and Abraham Lincoln, but, as far as this House is concerned, it was the year which produced Volume 12 of Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 1809. If any hon. Member is interested in checking the references which were given by the right hon. Member he will find that the whole of that volume, or nearly the whole of it, is occupied by a series of discussions which I regret to say are headed: "Conduct of the Duke of York." What was the case in 1809, when
a gentleman was proceeded against by the House of Commons on the ground of tampering when all he had done was to tender advice to a witness about to appear before a Committee of the House.
There was a witness called Mrs. Clarke, who was a close friend of an eminent person, and the House of Commons in 1809 was investigating an allegation that a number of commissions in the Army were being corruptly sold through or with the assistance of Mrs. Clarke. Mrs. Clarke was giving evidence before the House, and as she was giving evidence a note was thrust into her hand by a messenger. She showed some confusion, and was asked—I think it was by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day—what the note contained. She said it came from a gentleman called Mr. William Williams. She gave some further evidence about it. He said that he was a clergyman, and the House of Commons
came to the conclusion that he was certainly a half-wit. But the advice which Mr. Williams gave to Mrs. Clarke, as she was a witness in this important case before the House of Commons, was that really it would be very much better for her to cut and run, and that if she got to the other side of the Channel with her children she would be most handsomely provided for. What the analogy may be between Mr. Williams in the year 1809, advising Mrs. Clarke that instead of continuing her evidence before the House of Commons she should bolt, and the communication between my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce I leave to be explained by those lawyers to whom the right hon. Member for Epping referred when he said that in their opinion paragraph 21 of the report was extremely obscure. So much for precedents. It is not true that there are many precedents, but there is one, I admit, and I hope he will not mind if I admit that it may tell against my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India. The Reverend Mr. Williams in the year 1809 was believed to be committing a breach of privilege when he advised Mrs. Clarke that she should leave the country.
I have another complaint against my right hon. Friend. There was a most delightful passage of arms and wits by which he hoped to force out an addition to the extracts from the letter, already to be found printed in the report of the Committee, the letter of the 7th July, and he indicated, without saying what the contents were, that it would make all the difference to him if only one more sentence might be produced, that he laboured under a severe sense of injustice, it was manifestly unfair and improper and everything that was disgraceful that he should be deprived of this sentence. I certainly expected, if he ever got it, that it would really turn out to be something tremendous. It was a letter from the Secretary of State for India, and I began to think: can it be that my right hon. Friend at the end of his letter has forgotten himself and used some language which is un-parliamentary, and possibly improper? We were all of us hanging on the moment when this tremendous secret might be revealed. It is always a good plan to see whether or not there is anything
in a case presented in these terms, and it is manifest that there was nothing in the complaint at all.
The right hon. Member for Epping reminded me of an incident which I think I recall in the history of the law where there was a great dispute—in the Divorce Court, I think, it was—whether a particular question could be put and the answer to it could properly be given by a chambermaid in a divorce suit, and after much argument the learned judge decided that the question could not be put. An appeal was taken to the Court of Appeal, where there was more argument, and ultimately a judgment by three Lord Justices that the question could not be put. After a proper lapse of time the matter was taken to the House of Lords, where argument was put forward by gentlemen in full-bottomed wigs, judgment was reserved, and ultimately a majority decided that the question could be put. Thereupon the chambermaid was brought back to the Divorce Court and asked what happened in the corridor on that particular day. She said, "Please, Sir, I do not know; I was away for a holiday."
I trust I have shown to the House that whether as regards his allegations of fact, whether as regards his precedent in law, or whether as to his alleged suffering from the omission of a most important sentence in a letter, my right hon. Friend has not got a leg to stand upon.
What I so much regret is that while that is plain to all of us, the right hon. Gentleman does not take the course which we should all like him to take, that is, to come forward and say that he felt it his duty to bring these matters before the House, very painful matters, but that he had no other course, that the documents had only reached his hands just at that moment and that so far from this being, as some rumours have suggested, the result of long meditation and preparation, it was of such recent growth that he was only able to give notice to my right hon. Friend at midnight the previous evening. If he had explained that in those circumstances he felt he was justified in raising the matter at once but that the ultimate facts did not bear out his first and worst suspicions, indeed that he was heartily sick of the matter, he would have received from this House the welcome to which his generosity and, if I might be
permitted to say, his wisdom would have entitled him. But he persists in his present course. His protests that all this has been done out of a passionate affection for the purity of the law of Parliament really carry as much conviction as the protests of Sir Oswald Mosley that the brutalities of his uniformed bullies are all explained by a passionate attachment to freedom of speech. The real truth is, of course, that while this matter may have been a proper one to be raised, it is now finally disposed of.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Do not make any mistake about that.

Sir J. SIMON: It may be that the right hon. Gentleman is right in his muttered interjection, that we are not to make any mistake about that. I begin to think that these proceedings are not engineered in order to vindicate the law of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman bids us make no mistake about it. We shall see about that. These proceedings were started in the hope and belief that they would bring upon my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India ruin. At the end of two months, during which he has endured this grievous charge and this great wrong, he is unanimously acquitted. Instead of the ruin which it was designed to bring upon him he has got his vindication. The vote to-night will show by a unanimous judgment of this House that he is entitled to that vindication, and he will resume his work not only with the confidence of his colleagues, but with the confidence of the House and of the country.

7.0 p.m.

Duchess of ATHOLL: My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) seem to have been chiefly concerned to convict my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) of what I submit is a trivial inaccuracy in regard to date, to which he himself confessed. The time of the House therefore seems to me to have been too much occupied by the consideration of my right hon. Friend's speech made last April and much to little with the terms of the report which the House is asked to approve. I will only say, in regard to my right hon. Friend's speech, that, though it may be found to be inaccurate in small points of detail, I should have
thought that there were but few hon. Members of this House who would not agree that the narrative of events as stated by the Committee shows that there was at least a case for inquiry. I wish however to direct the attention of the House to some matters in the report itself which merit serious attention. I can claim no knowledge of the evidence; I have only made a study of the report as a complete outsider, but there are some things in it that I feel I must bring before the House.
The first is the fact that the report nowhere makes clear the difference between the Fiscal Autonomy Convention and the tariff proposals of the White Paper. It altogether omits to bring out that the convention which covers the present position contains certain safeguards, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook reminded us, while the White Paper proposals contain none. This of course was the reason for the acute anxiety which the report tells us was aroused in Lancashire by the publication of the White Paper, namely, that the Paper proposed to abrogate such safeguards as the convention contains The reference, however, to the convention in the report by no means makes that clear. The reference to the statement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at Lord Derby's dinner says that he spoke there, of the right given to India to control tariffs, a right which could not be taken away, and the Committee's summary of the statement made by the Secretary of State states that he regarded himself as an adviser whose duty it was to give an opinion in regard to the "possibility of the abrogation of the Convention." I ask, who would understand from that statement, that the White Paper—for which the Secretary of State was responsible—proposed to abrogate that Convention in toto?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook has stated that India's fiscal autonomy has been recognised at Ottawa. I can find nothing inconsistent between the Preferential Tariffs given us by the Indian Assembly as a result of Ottawa, and the existing Convention, one of the safeguards in regard to which is, that the Secretary of State can object to a tariff if it cuts across general Empire policy. As a policy of Imperial Prefer-
ence was agreed upon at Ottawa, the Indian preferential tariffs seem entirely in line with the Convention, and as the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook stated that no British Government had sought to use this safeguard, I would remind him that the Lord President of the Council a few years ago addressed a very pressing request to the then Viceroy to intervene to object to a tariff, proposed by the Assembly, which it was feared would prove injurious to this country.
Finally, if there is anything further needed to make clear the difference between the existing Convention and the proposed complete autonomy of the White Paper, it is the fact that the Manchester delegates—

Mr. SPEAKER: I am sure I should be quite wrong if I allowed this Debate to develop into a general discussion on these lines.

Duchess of ATHOLL: With respect, I am only endeavouring to make clear that these points are not brought out in the report, and that it is very difficult for hon. Members fully to understand the report unless this fact is made plain. I have said sufficient, however, I think, to make that clear, and I will pass on to my next point. This deals with a passage in the Secretary of State's letter of 5th May to the President of the Chamber of Commerce, to the effect that the Government would not consider imposing any safeguard on Indian fiscal autonomy. This seems to me hardly consistent with the assurances we have been given in this House and in other places of the complete freedom of Parliament.

Mr. SPEAKER: The Debate is on the question of the report of the Committee of Privileges, and whether this report should be approved. It is not in order to deal with these extraneous questions.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I apologise, Mr. Speaker; and pass on to my third point. This is that there are two findings of the Committee which do not seem to be consistent with their own presentation of the facts as ascertained by them. We are told towards the end of the report that the advice of the Secretary of State and Lord Derby was sought by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. That is, of course, perfectly true of Lord Derby, at least from 8th August onwards. I can, however, find no indication whatever
in the Committee's account of the events to indicate that advice was sought of the Secretary of State. The only reference to advice being sought of him is in the Committee's summary of the right hon. Gentleman's own statement of his case, where he says, on page 6, that the initiative of the discussions came from Mr. Bond in a letter to him of 12th April. The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook has reminded the House that prior to 12th April there had been a deputation from the Manchester Chamber to the President of the Board of Trade and the Secretary of State for India. This, coming as it did after the expressions of great anxiety which the report tells us the publication of the White Paper had aroused, and following on a meeting of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, which passed a resolution, obviously must have been a deputation that went up to London to protest against the omission of any safeguards in the White Paper.
It is interesting to find that the Secretary of State does not claim in his statement that his advice was sought by that deputation, and the Committee's version of the letter of 12th April is to the effect that Mr. Bond thanked the Secretary of State for receiving the deputation and asked to be kept informed of future events. In that I can find nothing to indicate that the advice of the Secretary of State was sought either by the deputation or in the letter of 12th April. If we follow the Committee's own account of the events that succeeded, the strong criticism which they tell us was expressed in the letter sent from the chamber on 23rd May, the appeal that the chamber made to the President of the Board of Trade to intercede with the Secretary of State on behalf of its views, the request of Sir Thomas Barlow to Lord Derby to bring home to the Secretary of State how seriously the position was viewed, and Lord Derby's own statement that he had arranged the dinner in order to enable the Manchester Chamber to express their deep anxiety in regard to the White Paper proposals. I can find in none of these things any indication that the right hon. Gentleman's advice was sought, as the Committee found that it had been. When we come to the letter of 17th July from the Secretary of State to Lord Derby, there is nothing whatever as to the right hon. Gentleman in-
dicating that his advice had been sought. He writes from his belief that the evidence that he had perused from the Manchester Chamber of Commerce was inconsistent with the proposed negotiations with India. I do not, therefore, know on what the Committee have based their finding that the advice of the Secretary of State was sought by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and was given only after it had been asked for.
Then, again, I find an inconsistency in the finding of the Committee that the decisive voice in the changing of the evidence was the messages that had been received from the Mission in India. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, with his great skill, has endeavoured to make out a good case for this statement and to show that, although the Committee themselves showed that the Mission more than once declined to take the responsibility of asking that the evidence should be withdrawn, yet the decisive reason for withdrawing the evidence was the messages received from the Mission in India. I find it difficult, however, to know the ground for the Committee's belief that the "sources which could not be ignored" and which apparently put pressure on the chamber of commerce were merely the messages from the Mission. The Mission's messages had been mentioned quite frankly and openly in earlier paragraphs of this report. Why, suddenly, is there this mysterious manner of referring to them? I, therefore, feel that it will assist the House better to understand the position if the Government could see their way to publish the statements and letters for which my right hon. Friend has asked. I can understand that there is probably much in the evidence which it would not be in the public interest to publish, but I see a very serious inconsistency between these findings of the Committee and their presentation of the facts, and I do not think that the question is left in a satisfactory position.
Then I come to what, I think, matters most of all—the view taken in paragraph 21 as to the Joint Select Committee's functions. If I may be allowed a very brief personal reference, I am the daughter of an historian, who, I think I can claim, was known by fellow historians as taking tremendous pains to
ascertain his facts. I have, therefore, grown up in the belief that no opinion was worth anything that was not based upon facts, and that in considering public questions, where there are necessarily conflicting views, the first endeavour of everyone must be to try to ascertain the facts, and to spare no pains in the process. I confess, therefore, that I read with dismay the pronouncement of the Committee that the function of a Select Committee is not so much to ascertain facts as to hear opinions; that the
main object is to persuade and not to depose to the facts except in so far as a state of mind can be said to be a question of fact.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Surely my Noble Friend realises that the reference is to the witnesses and not to the Committee?

Duchess of ATHOLL: That may be so, but it is said on the same page that the Committee are required:
to speculate as to the future course of events, or to estimate the strength of political forces, or to devise new forms of Government.
I find no mention here of getting at the facts as the first and most obvious duty of a Select Committee. I can only ask how the Committee are to arrive at opinions worthy of presentation to this House unless they have heard many facts and have endeavoured to verify the statements made to them.
I cannot help thinking that my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council had in view the necessity for a Committee ascertaining facts when he assured us last summer that the Committee would be sifting out the true witnesses from the false. I can only say that I trust that this is not a view of their functions taken by the Members of the Joint Select Committee themselves. If it were, it might account for what I regard as the very serious fact that there are serious gaps in the evidence that has been laid before them. They have not heard all they might of existing conditions, as they have heard little about the departments which were transferred 12 years ago to Indian Ministers. They have only heard evidence about one of the transferred departments and only in regard to two Provinces out of British India's 10, and they have heard no evidence about some of the departments proposed to be transferred. I say, with-
out hesitation, that the confidence of this House and of the country in the findings of the Joint Select Committee will be enormously weakened if the impression gets abroad that that is the conception of their duties held by the Members of the Committee themselves.
Again, if advice and persuasion are to be allowed, how shall we know that opinions which may be quoted to us on behalf of the report of the Joint Select Committee are, in fact, opinions spontaneously and genuinely held? In this connection I must express my astonishment that my noble Friend the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) whom I have always regarded as possessing a great knowledge of Parliamentary procedure, appeared to attach so little weight to this question. Apparently, the Noble Lord is prepared to allow a certain measure of advice and persuasion, but he will object to it if it goes beyond a certain point. But who is to settle at what point advice and persuasion will no longer be permissible and where is the line to be drawn?
Because of the inconsistencies to which I have referred and of the serious view which I take of the limitation of the function of the Committee; because I feel that if that view prevails it will not only weaken the prestige of the present Joint Select Committee but will make many of us feel that it will never be worth while to set up a Select Committee in connection with this House again, I greatly regret that I do not feel able to give my Vote in approval of the report.

7.18 p.m.

Sir ROBERT HORNE: I wish, Mr. Speaker, to raise a point of Order and to ask your guidance. I am in a particular difficulty in regard to this report since some of the speeches which we have heard in the Debate. I take it that the main question at issue is whether the Secretary of State for India and the Earl of Derby are absolved from the charge made against them of breach of privilege. I am prepared to support the decision of the Committee of Privileges upon that matter, but the Committee of Privileges, as has been shown, deal with a variety of other things in this report, and I was somewhat staggered to find the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) refer to altering the law. We cannot surely be alter-
ing the law in a discursive Debate of this kind. If we are going to alter the law in this matter, we ought to have an opportunity for giving it much further consideration before deciding. Therefore, while prepared to support the Committee's decision upon what I take to be the crucial matter submitted for their decision, I cannot agree with the kind of account which has been given of the Sessional Order and the proposal to abrogate it now. I think that there is a complete misconception with regard to that, and, while I do not wish to use up the time of the House—

Mr. LOGAN: Is this a point of Order?

Sir R. HORNE: It is a point of Order. I am asking for the guidance of Mr. Speaker as to whether, in supporting a Motion approving of this report, we are supporting everything in the report or only supporting its decision upon the issue referred to it, namely, whether a breach of privilege was committed in this case or not. As I have said already, I am prepared to support that decision, but I am not prepared to give away my judgment upon this vast matter which I suppose may come up for consideration again when the Sessional Order is once more produced before the House, and I am not prepared to give my assent to the opinions which have been uttered by the noble Lord the Member for Oxford University.

Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right in saying that the Debate this afternoon is on the question of whether or not the House should accept this report which deals only with the question of breach of privilege. He went on to refer to the speech made by the noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) and I understood him to suggest that the noble Lord had used the expression "altering the law," in connection with this report. I am sure that if the Noble Lord did use that expression he did not mean to infer that anything which is in this report alters the law. No alteration in the law can be made by a Report of a Select Committee.

Sir R. HORNE: You will forgive me, Sir, for saying this. It is perfectly apparent that some of my hon. Friends here are very apprehensive as to alterations in practice which are envisaged in paragraph 21 of the report, and they were
prepared to move an Amendment dealing with that matter. I myself regarded what was said in that paragraph as an excresence on the report. I regarded those observations as mere obiter dicta, and I took it that they were not being voted upon in the decision that we are called upon to take to-day. I hope that that is the position.

Mr. SPEAKER: I take it that the report before us expresses an opinion on behalf of the Committee of Privileges and does nothing more.

Lord H. CECIL: May I be allowed to say that if I referred to "altering the law" it was inadvertent, and it was a technical mistake.

Sir BASIL PETO: May I remind the Noble Lord that he said the Committee were going to add perhaps a chapter, or if not a chapter, a page, or if not a page, a footnote to the practice as at present laid down.

Lord H. CECIL: Of course, there is no question of altering the law by a report. This report of the Committee of Privileges declares the law, and it is entirely concerned with the question which was raised before the Committee. The Committee declares the law in given circumstances in respect of the point raised.

7.24 p.m.

Sir REGINALD BANKS: I find myself in the same difficulty as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home) and I doubt whether my difficulty is eased by the statement that the observations in paragraph 21 do not alter the law. If they do not alter the law they certainly are declaratory of very important principles of law. Like my right hon. Friend, I am ready to accept the verdict of the Committee upon the conduct of the right hon. Gentlemen concerned, but I am reluctant to subscribe to these principles, whether they are merely declaratory or intended as an alteration of the law, and I should like to know how we stand upon that matter.

Mr. SPEAKER: I can only repeat what I have already said. Whatever appears in this report does not alter the law. The report may be cited in relation to future cases with reference to matters of practice. When a question of this sort arises again, of course the report of the Committee may be quoted, but only to
that extent can it be said to have any effect at all in relation to law or procedure.

Sir R. HORNE: I should like here and now to make it clear that in supporting the report of the Committee I do not support anything but their decision upon the matter in hand.

7.26 p.m.

Mr. J. P. MORRIS: As a Lancashire Member of Parliament and one deeply interested in the welfare of the cotton industry, I appreciate very much being called upon to give my opinion on the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) in regard to the charges which he has made against the Earl of Derby and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India. I now repeat what I said on 16th April, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping had not the vestige of the shadow of a possibility of justification in connection with the charges which he made. I maintain that the right hon. Gentleman made one cardinal error. He failed to recognise the dual capacity of my right hon. Friend as Secretary of State for India and as a Member of the Joint Select Committee. He made another mistake when he placed too much reliance upon the evidence tendered to him by a certain section of opinion in Lancashire to the effect that the bringing of these charges would weaken the position of the Government on the White Paper proposals.
Let there be no misunderstanding. Every political dodge and expedient that could be employed by the India Defence League, the "ginger group" in this House, and the Cotton Trade League to undermine the prestige of the Government has been tried, and those efforts having failed, some new stunt had to be tried to capture the imagination of the people or to play upon the credulity of the more thoughtless part of the people. What we got were the charges made by the right hon. Gentleman. It was the case of a drowning man clutching at a straw. I desire to say emphatically that the charges had not any substance as affecting Lancashire's cotton trade with India. They were not made in the interests of the Lancashire cotton trade. They were made in fond hope that, on technical grounds, the Committee of Privileges would find that the Earl of
Derby and the Secretary of State for India had brought pressure to bear on the Manchester Chamber of Commerce.
It is not difficult to conjecture what would have been the result of such a verdict. The Joint Select Committee would have been reconstituted. All the evidence given up to the present would have been destroyed. In order to restore public confidence the work would have been started afresh, and it would have been started in an atmosphere of prejudice and doubt particularly from the point of view of India. In such circumstances, what would have been the effect in India? Would the people of India again have sent a large number of representatives to this country to reiterate the evidence already given to the previous Joint Select Committee? Of course they would not. They would think, not unnaturally—not understanding the mentality of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping—that this was an attempt on the part of the British people to destroy the aspirations of the Indian people to advance along the road of self-Government.
The final result would have been the breakdown of the machinery set up by Parliament to find a lasting solution of the Indian problem. There would have been bloodshed and chaos in India, and the possibility of this country being flung into the throes of a General Election just as we were emerging on the high road to prosperity. The original Memorandum, as every one now knows, cut right across the principle of fiscal autonomy granted to India in 1919. I feel very strongly that the future relations in the cotton trade as affected by that fiscal convention must be completely detached from the problem of India constitutional reform now before the Joint Select Committee, and in that contention I am supported by the recommendation of the Joint Select Committee on the Government of India Bill, 1919, which reads as follows:
Nothing is more likely to endanger the good relations between India and Great Britain than a belief that India's fiscal policy is dictated from Whitehall in the interests of the trade of Great Britain. That such a belief exists at the moment there can be no doubt. That there ought to be no room for it in the future is equally clear. India's position in the Imperial Conference opens the door to negotiations between India and the rest of the Empire, but negotiation without power to legislate is likely to remain ineffective. A satisfac-
tory solution of the question can only be guaranteed by the grant of liberty to the Government of India to devise those tariff arrangements which seem best fitted to India's needs as an integral portion of the British Empire.
If any further proof were needed that my original contention is right, I would like to remind the House that in 1921 the late Mr. Montagu, who was then Secretary of State for India, quoted this passage to a cotton deputation from Lancashire who interviewed him on tariff changes, and in reference thereto said:
These are very strong words, which, except for some timely warning by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, almost passed unchallenged in the House of Commons; but when the Bill came for the Third Reading to the House of Lords, Lord Curzon, speaking on behalf of His Majesty's Government, pointed out the great change which had been instituted in these matters by what amounted to the grant of fiscal autonomy to India. I will read you his words if you like, but I am sure they must be familiar to most of you, and I do not want to waste your time. I can paraphrase them in the words of one of the speakers this afternoon. The people of India are plain, humble people, and they regard a promise as a promise; and after that report by an authoritative Committee of both Houses, and Lord Curzon's promise in the House of Lords, it was absolutely impossible for me to interfere with the right, which I believe was wisely given, and which I am determined to maintain, to give to the Government of India the right to consider the interests of India first, just as we, without any complaint from any other parts of the Empire, and the other parts of the Empire without any complaint from us, have always chosen the tariff arrangements which they think best fitted for their needs, thinking of their own citizens first.
After that declaration by Mr. Montagu, he declared, in a despatch to the Government of India which was published in India on behalf of His Majesty's Government, that he accepted the principle which he outlined to the cotton trade delegation. Later in the same year the Government spokesman in the Council of State made the following declaration:
That the Government of India has every intention of exercising in concert with the Indian Legislature … the fiscal powers which have been conferred on it under the recent constitutional reforms.
If what I have said be not sufficient proof that the cotton trade relations with India, as affected by fiscal autonomy, should be removed from the purview of the Joint Select Committee, I would like to read to the House what my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council
said, in a speech of welcome to the Indian delegations at the Ottawa Conference.

Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid the hon. Member is going very wide of the report. The only question involved is one of breach of privilege.

Mr. MORRIS: I submit to your Ruling, Sir, but I was endeavouring to point out that if the right hon. Member for Epping had been cognisant of all these facts regarding the fiscal autonomy convention, it is probable that he would never have made the charges. I now say that any person with an average amount of common sense would recognise that we could not interfere with the fiscal freedom of India. But, no. There are in Lancashire a certain section of the employers in the cotton trade, together with a small, fractious body of supporters of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping, who for the last three years have indulged in wild and hysterical statements which, far from helping the cotton trade, have done harm and needlessly discredited Lancashire in the eyes of the world. It is that section of the cotton trade, much to my surprise, which has apparently exercised great influence in the formulating of the original memorandum of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. That original memorandum embodied suggestions which would not only have embarrassed the development of a wholesome understanding between India and this country in our future trade relations, but which, if insisted upon by His Majesty's Government, would have destroyed the Ottawa spirit of co-operation and good will.
I feel, and I state without fear, that the Secretary of State was only discharging his obvious public duty in taking care that any suggestion emanating from such an important body as the Manchester Chamber of Commerce should not lend themselves to misunderstanding, but that they should be suggestions made in the best interests of the Lancashire cotton trade. I am satisfied that in the action taken, particularly when requested by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to give advice, they were acting with a wise conception of their obligations to India and this country in suggesting such modifications of the views of those
responsible for the economic situation in Lancashire as would make for the success of the trade negotiations then proceeding in India. I therefore submit that if my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping had been in full knowledge of the facts—and in his case there is no excuse—if he had been fully apprised of the atmosphere created by the recalcitrant minority in Lancashire, and if he had displayed one-tenth of his usual political ingenuity he would never have allowed himself to become the victim of a mere political maneouvre which has ended in his finding another mare's nest. If he had been cognisant of all the facts that I have enumerated, he would certainly have come to this conclusion, that what transpired between the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the Earl of Derby, and the Secretary of State was merely a question for a common sense understanding between those responsible for the interests of the Lancashire cotton trade in Lancashire and the representatives in India of the issue to give fulfilment to the general principles laid down at the Ottawa Conference.
I now dissociate myself, as I have done from the start, from the charges made by my right hon. Friend upon the Earl of Derby and the Secretary of State, who, in my judgment, have rendered a real service of incalculable value to Anglo-Indian relations in their asked-for intervention in dealing with the original memorandum of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. My main concern is to establish and maintain the friendship of India, and in this respect I am satisfied that both the Earl of Derby and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have discharged with the fullest effect their outstanding and primary duty. This House will decide either to confirm or to reject the report of the Committee of Privileges. In my opinion, there is no doubt what this House will do, but I would like to make a few observations upon the conduct of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping in the matter which we are now discussing. A man who for so many years has been a Member of this House, who has occupied so many high positions of State, but who, in the course of fighting a losing battle, tries for a knock-out blow by questionable tactics, raises the question of his fitness to be selected for any responsible post in any Administration in the future. All his political life
has been notorious for changing opinions, just like the weathercock, which vacillates and gyrates with the changing winds.
Hon. Members of this House will not forget his strong condemnation of General Dyer at Amritsar. It is difficult for me to square such condemnation with his "cat's meat for tigers" speech at the Cannon Street Hotel. Having once introduced an element of inconsistency into his political career, ever since he has been far too consistent not to be inconsistently consistent. It is about time this House took notice of this menace. If he were an ordinary human mortal, such chameleon-like performances would pass unnoticed, but he is not an ordinary human mortal. He is an extraordinary human being, with such power that he constitutes a definite menace to the peaceful solution of the many problems with which this country is confronted at the present time. The power of that menace is not decreasing; it is increasing in geometrical progression downwards. It has now become atavistic. I have had my say. I do not retract one word. I trust my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping, if I may be permitted to use his own words, will not forget that on questions of high policy personal considerations must not affect the faithful discharge of my duty, in criticising him in this House when, in my opinion, his conduct is not in keeping with the dignity of the position which he once occupied in the public life of this country.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. BOOTHBY: I find myself in a position of a little difficulty because the Prime Minister in the opening of the Debate made it plain—and naturally from his point of view—that the Government could not associate any Amendment with the Motion which is now before the House, and that that Motion would have to be voted on directly by the House. When I endeavoured to interrupt the Prime Minister, I wanted to ask him if he would allow a discussion as a substantive Motion of my Amendment, which was to add at the end of his Motion:
but, in view of the implication contained therein that the sessional order relating to witnesses is confined to judicial committees, considers that the status and procedure of other committees of this House should be further defined.
We can accept, as I do, the verdict of the Committee of Privileges upon Lord Derby and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and I should not be prepared to vote in any Division on the question. Therefore, I do not propose to move the Amendment which stands in my name after what the Prime Minister said. I should like, however, to express one or two grave doubts which I have felt about this report and which caused me to place the Amendment on the Paper. I know that some of my hon. Friends think I put that Amendment down because of my association and friendship with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill). It is not so. As a matter of fact, I myself regret to some extent that this Debate has been conducted so largely on the particular issue of the White Paper proposals. I share the position which is occupied by many hon. Friends who have never in the last two years expressed an opinion on the subject of India one way or the other, and who do not intend to express such an opinion until the Joint Select Committee reports.
Paragraph 21 on the report of the Committee of Privileges has caused some of us much anxiety. I must say that my anxieties were not allayed by your reply, Mr. Speaker, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home). As a matter of fact, when the Noble Lord the right hon. Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) was speaking he went so far as to state—I think he has since withdrawn—that the Committee were making case law. That was the expression he used; I took it down at the time. Obviously, what he intended to say was that the Committee were establishing new precedents and practice. If that be the case, it is serious, because with all deference to the Noble Lord and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I cannot accept paragraph 21 of the report as the last word in the constitutional Parliamentary procedure and practice governing committees. I would like the House to consider some of the things which appear in this report. Suppose the Attorney-General under the new conditions as laid down in this report were invited to serve upon a Select Committee, what would he have to do and what sort of person would he have to be? First, he would find at the bottom of page 17 that
he would have to go into the Committee with his mind made up and his opinions formed. It would be expected of him that he should have his mind made up, and he would have to hear but not give judicial weight to the evidence in front of him. He would be told that
the ordinary rules which apply to tribunals engaged in administering justice or deciding issues of fact between contending parties cannot be applied to the Joint Committee. It might be said that the Committee should proceed in a judicial spirit; but this could only mean that the Committee should act fairly and without suffering prejudice to hinder the hearing of all sorts of opinions.
I submit that that goes far beyond anything that any average hon. Member imagines a Select Committee of this kind would normally do. It establishes new precedents of a highly complex and doubtful character. The report continues:
Your Committee have given full consideration to the provisions of the Sessional Order of 1700, but the Order has, in their judgment, only a very limited application to the circumstances they have had to consider.
If anything is making new law, that goes pretty near it. It is laid down in this document that they do not consider the Sessional Order of 1700 applies to such a Committee as the India Joint Select Committee.

The ATTORNEY - GENERAL: The Committee say nothing of the sort. The sentence says that the Sessional Order has only a very limited application to the circumstances of the case.

Mr. BOOTHBY: I should imagine, from any ordinary interpretation of this paragraph and the speech of the Noble Lord the right hon. Member for Oxford University, that in the opinion of the Committee the Sessional Order in its entirety does not apply to a Committee such as the Indian Joint Select Committee. It is obvious from the precedents that are laid down in this paragraph and the deduction drawn from them. The Committee bring themselves to a very interesting point when they say on page 19 in paragraph 21:
How far advice without being in the least dishonest or corrupting is to be thought expedient is a different question.
That is the question which they pose. The answer to it is really a great matter of principle. The Committee say that they
are satisfied that neither Sir Samuel Hoare nor the Earl of Derby has behaved in such a way that they should be held to have tampered with any witness or to have attempted to bring about improperly the alteration of any evidence.
I accept that completely, unreservedly and thankfully, but it is not an answer to the general question which is posed in this paragraph as to how far
advice without being in the least dishonest or corrupting is to be thought expedient.
No reply is given to that question, and I submit, as things stand now, that on any sober and reflective reading of this paragraph we cannot allow it to be left as a precedent for the practice on all future occasions. It is very muddled and confused, and many of us are extremely anxious that it should not be left as it is as the result of this Debate. There is no question that a complete change is made as the result of this report in the generally accepted practice of the House so far as committees are concerned. A new division is set up between committees that are judicial and those which are semi-judicial in character. The Noble Lord suggested that the Committee had written a paragraph or a footnote to the constitutional history of this country. I think they have written a great deal more than a mere footnote in this paragraph 81, which covers practically the whole field of committees set up by this House.
I want to put most urgently to the Attorney-General that he should not suppose, because we do not divide against this Motion, that all hon. Members are satisfied that paragraph 21 is the last word in constitutional wisdom upon this question. There is really a case for a fuller consideration of this very intricate and difficult question in which the Committee of Privileges unexpectedly landed themselves by laying down all these considerations in paragraph 21. The House of Commons is to some extent discredited in the country, as we all know. [HON. MEMBERS: "No! "] I say it is being discredited. Discredit is being thrown on it from all quarters, and Parliamentary institutions are being held up to odium and contempt, not only in this country, but all over the world. The position is dangerous from that point of view. This is the last moment at which this House should be careless of its privileges. It would
be a great disaster if it should be thought that, as a result of the Debate, this House can calmly and with so little discussion accept this paragraph as a guidance for future practice so far as committees of all kinds in the House are concerned. I beg the Attorney-General to give us some assurance that the matter will be further considered, if necessary in relation to a reform of procedure generally in the House, by a competent committee set up for the purpose at no distant date. I am certain I am expressing the opinion of a large number of hon. Members when I say we would really regard with great anxiety and apprehension the question being left as it will be left at the end of to-day's Debate.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. HAMMERSLEY: It will be within the recollection of the House that when the breach of privilege was first raised by the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), I made a brief intervention on a specific point. That point was adequately and satisfactorily dealt with in the report of the Committee of Privileges. It is not necessary for me to refer to it again. My observations and unpremediated interpolation have been misinterpreted and misunderstood in certain quarters in India and possibly in this country. Therefore, it seems to me that it is desirable in the interests of better commercial relationships between ourselves and India that I should make some observations with the hope of removing any misapprehensions that may exist. The British Textile Mission to India, of which I was a member, was a trade mission. It was sent out with the main objective of exploring how the trade relationships between ourselves and India could be improved. There are many in Lancashire who have taken the view that the trade interests between the two countries are so incompatible and that national feeling in India is so hostile to Lancashire, that no satisfactory solution of our problems is possible on a basis of goodwill. One of the duties of the Lancashire Textile Mission was to find out to the best of their ability whether or not this view was correct.
As a result of the discussions which the Mission had with many sections of Indian opinion, with Indian mill-owners and others, we came to the unanimous opinion—I wish to emphasise that it was
unanimous—that not only can a foundation of goodwill be brought into being, but that without such a foundation trade with India of the magnitude which we consider to be necessary for the future well-being of this country cannot permanently be maintained. A large trade cannot be done with a country in which the channels of trade communications are constantly hostile. Our conversations led us to the conclusion that, provided we in this country appreciated some of the many problems of India and pursued a policy aimed at assisting the progress of the Indian people, the so-called traditional hostility of India towards Lancashire was by no means inevitable.
The Mission felt that if suspicion could be replaced by co-operation, trade between India and the United Kingdom could be so developed that important sections of opinion in India could be brought to regard Lancashire's essential exports not as harmful to India's national industry, but as complementary to her fuller economic life. We communicated these views to our colleagues in Manchester. We considered it highly undesirable that when we were in the midst of trying to build up that essential foundation of mutual understanding of which I have spoken, a frigidly worded document, perhaps backed up by resentful, verbal evidence, should be given to the world without a word of explanation or comment. The mission pressed for a prefatory supplementary statement couched in the most conciliatory language.
The report of the Committee quite rightly emphasises the weight which should be given to the views of the mission as to the best means whereby the valuable trade connection between this country and India may be maintained. After careful consideration of the problem in all its aspects, both in India and in Lancashire, the mission's view is that this trade connection can best be protected by a trade agreement between the two Governments concerned, fully and freely entered into by the commercial interests affected on both sides. In this way the growth of trade will be fortified by bonds of mutual self-interest. I would not like to be misunderstood as claiming that the mission achieved an immediate or adequate solution of the problem of the Indian market. It did not. Indeed in some respects progress
in implementing the agreement has been unexpectedly slow. But the mission was, and is, unanimous as to the best method and the best procedure by which the trade between Lancashire and India can be improved.

8.2 p.m.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: I am genuinely concerned in my mind about the principle involved in this discussion, with regard to the procedure in taking evidence not only before the Joint Select Committee but before other committees of this House. The point at issue is whether evidence which was originally submitted to the Committee by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce on proposals contained in the White Paper was subsequently altered, and whether action was taken by members of the Joint Select Committee in order that that evidence should be altered, and whether that constituted a breach of privilege. The report, which is unanimous, is that no breach of privilege took place, and we must accept that finding. But I wish to ask the Government whether the procedure that is allowed is as follows: That any member of the Joint Select Committee can go to any witness coming before that Select Committee and advise that witness as to what evidence he should give, have a discussion with that witness on the evidence which he intends to give, and if he does not like it endeavour to persuade him to alter that evidence and give some other evidence? Is that permitted in the procedure under which a Joint Select Committee works? I wish very much to have an answer to that question, and I hope that I shall get it, because to me it involves a very serious principle.
Where is such a principle going to end? Is it only in the case of a Joint Select Committee that this procedure is allowed, or does it also operate in the case of other committees, that any member of a committee can go to any witness and endeavour to induce him to give the evidence which that member wishes to be given? That is the procedure of the Joint Select Committee, and I venture to state that when the public realises that that is in operation it will shake the public's confidence not only in the evidence before that Committee but in the findings of that Committee when they are finally published, because
it will be impossible for the public to distinguish, in considering the evidence, as to which is the true evidence of the witness and which is the evidence which he has been induced to give by a member of the Committee. The Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) referred to the danger of persuasion. He is in agreement with persuasion, provided that it is not over-persuasion. How he draws the line between the one and the other I do not know. But he is agreeing to the principle that it is right that a member of a committee can go to a witness and influence him in the evidence which he shall give. It is not a principle to which I shall ever subscribe. If I am supposed to be supporting that principle in the report of the Committee of Privileges I entirely dissociate myself from the report. To my mind this is a very important principle, and I hope we shall have a direct answer from the Government with regard to it.
There is another question to which I wish to refer, and that is the question raised by the Noble Lord with regard to persuasion. All advice is persuasion. Whenever anyone advises anyone else he does so with the object of persuading that other person to change his point of view. All advice is direct persuasion. The Noble Lord drawe attention to the matter on page 20, where he says:
The importance of these considerations (i.e., the question of persuasion) in the present case, is greatly diminished by the plain truth that the persuasion that was used did not in fact change opinions.
In the mind of the Noble Lord the fault is not that you use persuasion but that that persuasion shall have some result upon the one persuaded, to my mind an entirely wrong principle. It is a monstrous idea that such a principle should be agreed to. What faith will the country have in any committee of this House? I know that in the case of many of the recommendations of Committees of this House no notice is taken of them at all. That may be the reason—I do not know. But it seems that in principle that is entirely wrong. I hope the Government will give a categorical answer to the question as to whether they are asking the House to agree to the principle that a Member of a committee has a right to go to a witness and endeavour to get that witness by argument and advice to change the evidence he is to give before
that committee to which the Member belongs. The whole value of evidence as such, the whole value of the finding of a committee will be absolutely null and void if that is the principle which is to be adopted in the procedure of committees of this House.
I feel very strongly on this subject, and I hope that if that is the procedure which is in operation, then for the sake of the value of evidence and of committees of this House the procedure will be altered at the earliest possible moment. Until it is altered the confidence of the public will be severely shaken. The initial and fundamental, error on the part of the Government was in placing a Minister, the Secretary of State for India, on the Joint Select Committee. It would have been infinitely better from their point of view if he had been outside that Committee. Then he would have been free to advise as he pleased. But it is to me a very serious matter if he, as a Member of the Committee, is permitted to interfere with evidence which is to be given before the Committee, and of which he is to be the judge. For these reasons I hope that the procedure will be altered at the earliest possible moment.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. EMMOTT: I desire respectfully to ask the House to permit me to express a view of this matter which has not been fully expressed in this Debate. So far, of course, no one who knows the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India, or Lord Derby, could for a moment entertain the thought that their public action could be actuated by any improper motive, or that they could deliberately do anything which would conflict with the highest principles of personal integrity. Therefore, the consideration of this matter can proceed without the embarrassment of any such odious suggestion. I take this report as it stands and I question none of the conclusions contained in it. The report finds that no breach of privilege has been committed by the Secretary of State or by Lord Derby. But it also finds, in the fifth part, that advice and persuasion have been used by these two gentlemen in relation to members of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce.
The Prime Minister in moving that the House agree with the report, referred
specifically to this part of it, and the fifth part does in terms refer to the advice and persuasion which have been employed by the Secretary of State and Lord Derby with members of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. I desire quite briefly to subject to some analysis the ground upon which the Committee of Privileges have come to their conclusion, fortified as I am, both in my intention and my argument, by the observations contained in the report under the name of the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), and indeed by the charming and witty speech which he delivered to the House to-day. The right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), as is stated on the fourth page of the report, laid emphasis, before the Committee of Privileges, upon the judicial character of the Joint Select Committee, But the Committee of Privileges states that the Joint Select Committee is not a judicial body. In paragraph 21 of the report that conclusion is to be found in the sentence:
The Joint Committee are not in the ordinary sense a judicial body.
Indeed there is no suggestion in the report that the Joint Select Committee is even a semi-judicial or quasi-judicial body. But does this argument lie in the mouth of Ministers? Advocates of what has come to be known as the policy of the White Paper on many occasions throughout the country for many months past have used what I may compendiously describe as the sub judice argument. My right hon. Friend the Member for Epping this afternoon reminded the House of the description that had been applied at the Friends' House in June last year by the Lord President of the Council to the functions of the Joint Select Committee. The Lord President of the Council will recollect too that he referred in that speech at the Friends' House to the determination of the members of the Committee to abstain from public discussion of the Indian question during the session of the Committee. Surely that determination, an entirely natural and proper determination, derives its reason from what might be described as the judicial character of the Joint Select Committee? The question is, what really are the functions of the Joint Select Committee? There is much confusion of thought in this matter. I want to suggest
to the House a distinction between the relation of the Joint Select Committee to Parliament, to which it makes its report, and its relation to persons who appear before it to give evidence. I refer the House to the Resolution which it passed on 29th March last year:
That … it is expedient that a Joint Select Committee … be appointed to con-eider the future government of India, and, in particular, to examine and report upon the proposals in the said Command Paper."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March, 1933;0 col. 1011, Vol. 276.]
The words in that Resolution to which I wish to call particular attention are "consider" and "examine and report." Is it not plain that in relation to Parliament, to which the Joint Select Committee reports, the functions of the Committee are advisory and not judicial? Indeed, the matter is really concluded by a passage on page 19 of the report of the Committee of Privileges, where it is stated:
The function of the Joint Committee is to advise Parliament about questions of legislative policy.
That is a perfectly accurate statement of the case. Therefore, in relation to Parliament, to which the Joint Select Committee is charged with the duty of reporting, the functions of the Committee are advisory. But, as I have already stated, I draw a distinction, and I assert that in relation to witnesses who appear before the Committee the functions of that Committee are judicial. It may be, if you like, that they are not judicial but quasi-judicial, but that distinction does not affect my argument. I readily agree that the procedure of the Joint Select Committee is not to be governed by all the rules that apply to courts of justice, but however you relax the severity of those rules the relation of the Committee to the witnesses who appear before it is of a judicial nature. The precedents, so far as I have been able to examine them. suggest no other principle. What other principle can be suggested to govern the relation of the Committee to witnesses who appear before it? If any other relation is suggested I shall be interested to hear from the Attorney-General what it is.
It would be interesting to discuss the nature, the weight and the
effect of the considerations which accompanied the advice which was given to the members of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce by the Secretary of State and Lord Derby. It would be interesting to examine the question what influence, if any, was brought to bear upon them, and what motives it was suggested to them should determine the evidence they were to give to the Joint Select Committee; but it is wholly unnecessary for me to do that, because advice and persuasion are admitted in the report of the Committee of Privileges itself. The question I ask is this. Are advice and persuasion compatible with the exercise by the Committee of judicial or quasi-judicial functions? I suggest that they are not. Advice after a person has come to give evidence to a Committee is one thing, but advice before he gives evidence is another. Can it be right, before a person has been heard on the evidence that he wishes to give to a Committee, to advise or persuade him, or attempt to persuade him, to alter it? If you desire to change the view of a person who is to express an opinion to you or to give evidence before you, surely it is open to you to attempt to persuade him when he comes before you. It is open to any member of the Committee to argue with or attempt to persuade a person who is before the Committee in order to induce him to qualify or, it may be, to retract his evidence; but how can it be right, before a witness comes before the Committee, for one or other member of the Committee to attempt to persuade him to shift the position which he will assume when he comes before it? That is the situation which deeply perturbs some Members of this House.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping was pressed, as the House well knows, to join the Joint Select Committee, and he has been criticised in some quarters for his refusal to do so; but if he had consented to serve on the Committee would a similar licence in regard to persuasion and advice have been permitted to him? In that case I can well imagine how a most indecent contest might have developed for the souls of witnesses, beside which the proverbial tug-of-war between devil and baker would be as nought. The 23rd and 24th paragraphs of the report of the Committee of Privileges point out the dangers of
the principle that is here admitted. It is now laid down, so far as I know for the first time, that a member of the Joint Committee commits no breach of privilege in giving advice or attempting to persuade a person who comes to give evidence before the Committee. Even so, the question of expediency is expressly reserved, in the 21st paragraph of the report. But the limits of the principle are not indicated. Is the principle to apply to all members of the Committee? And is it to apply to all Committees? I believe that to admit this principle is to open wide the door to great abuses, abuses involving the greatest injury to our Parliamentary institutions, and I hope the House will have these considerations in mind when it comes to its decision to-night.

8.24 p.m.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: It is not unworthy of notice that this Debate, heralded with so much interest and attended by so much excitement in its earlier stages, should be coming to a quiet conclusion during the dinner hour. It does not suggest to anybody that there is any real disagreement in any quarter with the conclusions at which the Committee have arrived. The Committee had a modest confidence in the conclusions to which they came after some 14 or 18 sittings, and their confidence is confirmed by the views expressed in every quarter of the House since my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) spoke, as to the satisfactory character of the Committee's conclusion that neither of the right hon. Gentlemen have committed any breach of privilege. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) took care to say that he whole-heartedly accepted the conclusions of the Committee, but, if one or two hon. Members who have spoken had realised what the task of the Committee of Privileges was, they would not have engaged in so many of the observations to which they have treated the House. The Committee of Privileges is not a body entrusted with the task of writing a text-book upon the conduct of Select Committees. It is not part of our purpose to prepare a thesis as to the way in which opinions should be formed. The Committee was entrusted with the one task of considering a complaint that was made to us on 16th April as to whether
two right hon. Gentlemen had committed a breach of privilege.
I conceive that the House would have thought us gravely exceeding our duty if, instead of directing our attention to the business of the Joint Committee on the White Paper, we had attempted to lay down all sorts of propositions which would be a text-book for future occasions in ascertaining whether or not anybody had conducted himself properly, either as a member of a Select Committee or as a witness attempting to give evidence before a Committee. Our hands were sufficiently full in dealing with the questions entrusted to us as to the conduct of the two right hon. Gentlemen in question, and it is a satisfaction to the members of the Committee—if I may presume to speak on the Committee's behalf—that their judgment, unanimously arrived at, is, as I hope, now about to be unanimously approved and confirmed by this House.
There are two or three points to which I might briefly allude in concluding this Debate. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping has, not unnaturally, disagreed with the views expressed in many parts of the Committee's Report. Those of us who practice in the courts are not altogether unfamiliar with the litigant who, having had his case dismissed by a tribunal, complains that the tribunal is either incompetent or partial. The right hon. Gentleman contrasts his opinion with the opinions of the Committee. The Committee of Privileges are entitled to submit themselves to the House as on the whole likely to be a little more impartial than the right hon. Gentleman himself. After all, it was the right hon. Gentleman's own Motion that this matter should be entrusted to the Committee of Privileges, and it was possible for him when he moved that Motion to suggest to the House that the constitution of the Committee might be altered in some respects. As a humble Member of the Committee of Privileges, I suggest that this House, having appointed us at the beginning of the Session to consider such questions as might arise in connection with privilege, and no aspersion having been made by the right hon. Gentleman upon our capacity when he made the Motion, can credit us with a sincere attempt thoroughly and impartially to have given
the consideration which, in our united judgment and experience, seemed proper to the matters which were brought to our attention.
The right hon. Member for Epping used one word more than once which I was sorry to observe. I have no desire to make any wounding observations as to his conduct on 16th April in bringing this matter before the House, or as to the speech which he has unhappily thought it his duty to make to-day, but I am bound to refer with regret to the fact that he charged the Committee of Privileges three times with suppressing evidence. "Suppressing" is a very ugly word to use in reference to evidence; it is a still more ugly word to use about a Committee which, if any committee were judicial, certainly was judicial. The right hon. Gentleman, who is not able at the moment to be here, will, I hope, recognise on reflection that, when the Committee unanimously came to the conclusion that it was not desirable to publish the evidence in full, they were not suppressing evidence, but were using their impartial powers of judgment, as they conceived them to be, in the public interest. There, I hope, the House will leave it. The House, I am happy to think, shows no disposition to accept the view of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping, and, if he were here, I should suggest for his consideration that we ought not to have been exposed to that somewhat unworthy taunt, as if we had done something in our own interests or in the interests of corruption or misunderstanding, when our only object was to arrive at an impartial arid faithful conclusion, and at the same time-prevent any injury to the public interest, whether of Lancashire or India.
The right hon. Gentleman has criticised severely the observations which we thought fit to make in paragraph 21, and he had some words to say to-day about the view which he tells us he has always taken about the Joint Select Committee. The right hon. Member for Epping has not always conducted himself as if he really believed that the committee was in its true nature a judicial tribunal. On 29th March, 1933, when this House was engaged in the appointment of the Select Committee, the right hon. Gentleman spoke in terms,
which I will read in a moment, of the proposed committee which certainly would have subjected him to legal consequences if they had been spoken of any ordinary judicial tribunal. He not merely referred to the conclusions at which the committee might arrive, but he made his attack upon those who were appointed. He said:
They will sit hemmed in on all sides by men pledged to secure the triumph of the Government policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March, 1933; col. 1047, Vol. 276.]
It is an offence to scandalise a judge, but the right hon. Gentleman on that occasion certainly scandalised the judges, if judges they were in the ordinary sense of the word.
Nor have the right hon. Gentleman and his friends stopped there. I am not complaining on this occasion, but am merely noticing the fact, that on many occasions they have referred in language of some emphasis to the conclusions at which they think the tribunal ought to arrive. They have made those forecasts and those observations on public political platforms. If this were a judicial tribunal of the sort which has been suggested, and which we all have in mind, the right hon. Gentleman has been guilty of gross misbehaviour in anticipating the conclusions of the Committee, or indeed in reflecting at all upon the nature of the conclusions which the Committee might make in the future. He should have awaited those conclusions, if it were such a judicial tribunal. The more I reflect upon this matter the more confident I am that, in spite of what has been said because of a little misunderstanding, as I think, by some hon. Members, about paragraph 21, we were sound in the judgment that we expressed as to the task of the Joint Select Committee.
We do not pretend that our view on that was not essential to our finding. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home) said that he accepted the finding of the Committee as to the absence of any breach of privilege, but he did not accept the reasons which led us to that conclusion. Let nobody be under any mistake about it; we arrived at the conclusion that there had been no breach of privilege, largely, or at any rate partly, because we could not regard this Committee as a court of law or a judicial tribunal in the ordinary sense of the term. When my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby)
is good enough to say that the paragraph is muddle-headed, and suggests that we have in some way repealed the Sessional Order of 1700—

Mr. BOOTHBY: Modified it.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: —I venture to think he has not done us the justice of reading and trying to understand the paragraph in question. He read the paragraph, or parts of it, to the House as if it were intended to be applicable to all Select Committees, of whatever character they might be. When we referred to the Sessional Order we said this:
Your Committee have given full consideration to the provisions of the Sessional Order of 1700, but the Order has, in their judgment, only a very limited application to the circumstances they have had to consider.
We did not say that the Sessional Order had no reference to Select Committees, as my hon. Friend asked the House to believe we did. We went on in the very next sentence to say that the Sessional Order prohibits anything in the nature of intimidation, or force, or suggestion of false evidence on questions of fact, or any attempt to prevent a person from appearing before a Committee of the House or from expressing his honest opinion, and no consideration of private gain may be suggested to a witness. Every one of these things is forbidden by the Sessional Order, and, if there had been any evidence that any of these things had been done in the circumstances of this case, the Sessional Order would have been of direct application to the circumstances that we had to consider. But, as nobody pretended that there was any corruption, nobody pretended that there was any bribery, nobody pretended that there was any intimidation, it is obvious that the provisions of the Sessional Order had very little importance in regard to the facts of this particular case, any more than the Sessional Order prohibiting the interruption of the proceedings of this House would have been relevant to the circumstances of the case.
Accepting everything that the Sessional Order prohibits, and maintaining its full force and efficacy if anyone should be so wicked or so foolish as to attempt to intimidate or bribe or corrupt a witness, we said that the Sessional Order did not apply to this case, or had a very limited
application to it, simply because there was no evidence of anything of the nature indicated or prohibited by the Sessional Order itself. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead says that he cannot subscribe to everything that appears in paragraph 21, the Committee do not ask him to subscribe to everything that is in it, nor do we suggest that paragraph 21 is inspired; but, broadly speaking, I have not heard any challenge of any sentence in the paragraph as applied to the circumstances of this case, that is to say of this particular Select Committee, although a good many people have said that the paragraph is one of which—

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: With regard to the question of tampering with witnesses, may I ask the Attorney-General whether advice given to a witness, in order to endeavour to induce such witness to alter the evidence that he would have given, is not tampering with the witness? Is it permitted for a member of the Indian Defence Committee to go to any witness and advise such witness on the evidence which he should give before the Committee?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: It is difficult to deal with a general question of that sort, stated in such a way as to make it absolutely impossible to relate it to any facts; but, if my hon. and gallant Friend asks that question in relation to the facts of this case, I say that the Committee's report speaks for itself, and we say that the advice given in this case was not a breach of privilege.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: I beg pardon; I am speaking entirely on the question of principle, as to whether in principle it is proper for that to be done.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I must repeat the statement that I made earlier in my observations, that the Committee of Privileges did not regard it as its duty to write a text-book or lay down principles. Our duty was to consider whether an offence had been committed against the privileges of this House, and, in so far as any reasoning which we have used in this report was necessary to enable the Committee to arrive at the conclusion which they reached, there it stands for such future guidance as the House may receive from it if similar circumstances should ever arise. I com-
mend this report to the House as a report which is confined to the circumstances of this case, and is absolutely conclusive as to the total absence of any impropriety of conduct on the part of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India or of the Earl of Derby. There the matter stands so far as I am concerned, and so far as the Committee of Privileges are concerned.
I hope I may be allowed to make this observation in conclusion. If the House intends, Session by Session, to set up a Committee of Privileges to consider any such questions as may arise, the House is doing itself an ill service if, when that Committee is asked to discharge the duties entrusted to it, it is to be treated, without any evidence, as if it had been guilty of some impropriety of conduct, such as suppressing or misrepresenting evidence. The Committee of Privileges, which is a very responsible Committee, and to which anybody must regard it as a great honour as well as a great responsibility to belong, is entrusted by the House with this task. If the House once begins to scandalise its own Committee, and if, when the Committee presents its report to the House, it is not to be accepted as the conclusion of an impartial Committee, the House stultifies itself, and deprives itself of the only method of which I am aware of making a proper inquiry into such cases of breach of privilege as may arise in the future.
I understand that it is not intended that there should be any Division on this Motion. I am not surprised. I say that in no taunting vein, and with no desire to triumph. We all feel a sober satisfaction that two men so universally respected as my right hon. Friend and Lord Derby have been acquitted of these serious charges. We have spent a good deal of time over this discussion, and I hope that the time has not been altogether wasted if it has disposed once and for all of these charges. In spite of what my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen said about this House being assailed, I venture to think that the conclusions of the Committee, the character of their proceedings, and the dispassionate character of the report which they have presented to the House, will confirm the House in the estimation which I believe they enjoy, not only in this country but in other countries which
sometimes would like to have a legislative assembly of the same impartial character as our own.

Resolved,

"That this House doth agree with the report of the Committee of Privileges."

Orders of the Day — MILK BILL.

Considered in Committee:

[Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1.—(Exchequer payments in respect of milk sold for manufacture.)

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have received a manuscript Amendment from the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones), but I am not quite certain of its relevance. Perhaps the hon. Member will be good enough to explain it.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: As I understand it, Clause 1 deals with payments from and to the Exchequer in respect of milk sold or used for the manufacture of cheese. The question I wish to raise is how these payments are to be vouched for.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I think the Amendment is in Order. I was not quite certain of the hon. Member's intention.

8.47 p.m.

Mr. JONES: I beg to move, in page 1, line 8, to leave out the words:
by means of such evidence as may be prescribed.
I presume these payments will be checked by the Milk Marketing Board's officials in the ordinary way. Is it not a fact that, as the Bill now stands, in practice, neither the Minister nor, indeed, the Comptroller and Auditor-General can investigate the accounts or the records of those payments? I presume they will undoubtedly be certified by the auditors of the board themselves. The question is what power there will be for their precise verification. I take it that this power can only be obtained by means of regulations which will be drafted by the Minister.
In Clause 7 (3) the power is given to ascertain the amount repayable to the Exchequer, but there does not seem to be any power given to the Minister or anyone else to ascertain the correctness of the original payments. It is clearly an accounting point vis-à-vis the Ministry and the Public Accounts Committee. It is a point of some substance from the point of view of the House of Commons. We are now setting up all sorts of boards, and it is important that we should have power vested in the Comptroller and Auditor-General to ascertain somehow with precision how these original payments have been made and whether they have been properly so made. If the right hon. Gentleman can give me some assurance on that score, I shall be very glad indeed. I rather thought that the words that I am proposing to omit had reference to regulations that he may be contemplating in accordance with Clause 7 (3).

8.50 p.m.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): I think I shall be able to satisfy the hon. Gentleman, who is a, member of the Public Accounts Committee, and who naturally desires to preserve the authority of his Committee—

Captain CROOKSHANK: Not of his Committee, but of the Committee of the House.

Mr. ELLIOT: Of the Committee as the eyes and ears of the House—that there is no point arising here. The difference between this and the Clause to which he refers is the difference between lending and recovering a £5 note. There are meticulous provisions laid down as to how payment is to be recovered, but it is not necessary for us to specify in what form the loan of the £5 is to be made, because on that I have to satisfy fully the Comptroller and Auditor-General. On being satisfied, I
shall out of moneys provided by Parliament pay to the Board.
That is to say, all those sums would have to appear in my Estimates. I shall be fully responsible for them. The Comptroller and Auditor-General would certainly not be satisfied with the certificate of the officer to whom the money was being paid. I can assure the hon. Member that the point that he
desires to secure, namely, the control of this House over these advances, is fully met.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: May I pursue the point a step farther? I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Comptroller and Auditor-General will have power to check these payments in every respect. As I see it, under this Clause the Comptroller and Auditor-General will not have power to send his officers into the premises of any of these people and call for the examination of their papers in respect of payments from the Exchequer.

Mr. ELLIOT: I think I can assure the hon. Gentleman that he will have all the powers, because he can say to the board, "Unless you give me all the access to your information that I desire, I shall not pay over the money." He, therefore, retains complete power, and, if any Member of the House asks me on what evidence the money was paid out and whether it was bona fide expended, I shall have to satisfy the House, under the seal of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, that in fact these payments were properly made, and the responsibility will fall upon the tried and trusted financial machinery of the House and the Exchequer of showing that no such payments are made unless upon evidence which will satisfy the Comptroller and Auditor-General and any Member of the House who cares to question such payments.

8.53 p.m.

Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: The words proposed to be omitted are "by means of such evidence as may be prescribed." In Clause 13 one gets a definition of "prescribed," namely,
'Prescribed' means prescribed by regulations made with the approval of the Treasury,
and by the Ministers concerned. The Treasury is thoroughly accustomed to helping the Minister to make regulations regulating the payment of public moneys to persons other than public Departments and is certain to see to it that the matter is done properly and that the Comptroller and Auditor-General has proper supervision of it. In view of this definition of what "prescribed" means, we may be certain that there is no risk in the matter.

8.54 p.m.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS: In Clause 7 it has been necessary to put in a whole lot of provisions as regards powers of inspection and powers of entry, penalties for making wrong returns and all the rest of it, and those same things surely will be wasted under Clause 1. Surely, it is not right for the Minister to prescribe by means of regulations such things as penalties when they are not laid down in the Act. When it says the Minister may prescribe so and so, we give the Minister a general power in these matters. Where Parliament desires to give the Minister the powers which are expressly stated in Clause 7, I think it is very undesirable that, if similar powers are required in this Clause, they should not be dealt with in the same way. You should not in one ease merely leave it to the Minister to prescribe such matters as regards right of entry into premises, penalties for sending in false returns and all the rest of it. If it be necessary, right and proper to do it in detail under Clause 7, it is equally necessary, right and proper to deal with it under Clause 1. Would not the easiest thing be to apply the procedure of Clause 7 to the returns that were required under Clause 1 so as to give the Minister power to use the powers of Clause 7 for the purpose? He need not prescribe the form, but give him the powers of Clause 7 for the purpose of enforcing the form he wishes to prescribe under Clause 1. It is really the difference between prescribing the form and giving powers. Under Clause 7 we give the powers necessary to implement the inquiry into the form. It does not seem to be right to leave under Clause 1 the power to the Minister to prescribe the powers of implementing. It may be quite right to leave him the power of prescribing forms, which is obviously a convenient matter for him to prescribe. We ought now to give the Minister the powers he requires to implement and prescribe the form.

8.57 p.m.

Captain CROOKSHANK: It is rather difficult for the Committee to be seized of the full implications of the manuscript Amendment. I know the lines along which, in these matters, the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. M. Jones) works, if not in other matters, and I am certain that the point he is making is one which
ought to be considered a little further. I ask the Minister not to close his mind between now and the Report stage in order that those who perhaps have most technical knowledge on this point may consult together so that there may be no trouble in the future. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir P. Acland) said that the case was met already under the provisions prescribed in Clause 13, but the approval of the Treasury is not necessarily one with which we are in accord. We are not talking about Treasury powers, but the powers of this House in regard to this matter, and which are not always the same. If the Minister will tell us that he will consider the matter further I am sure that it will satisfy everybody.

8.59 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: I have very great pleasure on a financial matter such as this to give the fullest assurance that I will look into it to see the exact bearing of the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend opposite. It is not always easy to grasp the full implications of a manuscript Amendment. On the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps), I would say that in the later Clauses of the Bill we are dealing with the recovery of money and the making of grants of money. It is clear that when we have money in our hands and are passing it over we may prescribe the most rigorous and meticulous regulations and be sure that they will be carried out. When we deal with the less difficult matters we can prescribe every step we desire, whereas when we are dealing with more speculative business such as the recovery of money we have to collect information and have power of entry and have to create new offences, though we do not like it, which are punishable by fine. The recovery is a different matter altogether from the granting of money, but I shall certainly look into the matter and see whether it is desirable and possible to meet my hon. Friend.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: I am quite satisfied, in view of the discussion which has taken place, that the subject I have raised is one of some substance, and the Minister has met us very handsomely by undertaking to inquire further into the
matter, and with that assurance I shall be most happy to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The following Amendment stood upon the Order Paper:

In page 2, line 8, to leave out "month," and to insert "of the twenty-four consecutive months."—[Mr. Elliot.]

9.1 p.m.

Sir B. PETO: On a point of Order. The Minister is about to move his Amendment to insert the words "of the twenty-four consecutive months" in place of the word "month." These words are related to the words which follow in lines 9 and 10 of page 2 of the Bill, namely:
March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, and the beginning of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-six.
The next Amendment on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) and other hon. Members proposes to limit the operation of the Bill to 1935 instead of 1936. If the Minister's Amendment be carried, it will put out of order the next Amendment on the Paper, and I should like to ask whether there is any reason why the manuscript Amendment of the Noble Lady the Member for Kinross and Western Perth (Duchess of Atholl) to substitute "twelve consecutive months" for the "twenty-four consecutive months" to be proposed by the Minister should not be acceptable to the Chair, thus protecting the further Amendment in her name and that of some hon. Members opposite. Otherwise, I do not see how that Amendment can be moved.

9.2 p.m.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is obvious that, if the words proposed to be inserted are inserted, the next Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) and other hon. Members—in page 2, line 10, leave out "thirty-six" and insert "thirty-five"—must fall in consequence of the decision already taken by the Committee. It will be competent for Members to discuss the question of "twenty-four" on the Question, "That those words be there inserted." If the Committee decide to insert the words, there is nothing else to be done. I think that the discussion could be taken on
those words quite easily, or else we could have the discussion on the question to leave out the word "month." Obviously, we can only have one discussion, and I am in the hands of the Committee as to what is the most convenient course.

9.3 p.m.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: We had thought of handing in a manuscript Amendment on the lines of that of the Noble Lady so that we might discuss the point in connection with our Amendment on the Order Paper. It was clear to us, that whether we handed in a manuscript Amendment or not, we could only have one discussion. Fearing as we do the hoards of Members who are in the precincts of the House, we do not expect our Amendment to be carried, but we do not mind on which Amendment discussion takes place as long as it serves the same purpose.

Sir B. PETO: It is extremely desirable that words such as the Minister proposes should be inserted. It will make the Bill read very much better. Therefore had we not better have the discussion on whether it shall be "twelve" or "twenty-four"?

9.4 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: There are several other Amendments which follow upon this one from a drafting point of view. It is desirable in these matters to clear up the Bill as we go along. I suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) and other hon. Members that it would be better to have a discussion on the question, as you put it, Captain Bourne, "That those words be there inserted." We can raise the general issue on that question, and, if the Committee so decide, we can proceed to the consequential Amendments throughout the Bill which stand in my name and which cannot be inserted if we adopt the word "twelve" instead of "twenty-four."

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: After listening to the discussion, I think that the simplest thing to do would be to leave out "month," and then on the Question, "That those words be there inserted," for the Noble Lady to move to leave out "twenty-four" and to insert "twelve." We could have a full discussion on whether the "twenty-four" should stand part, and, if the words "twenty-four" stand part of the Amendment, it will become the consequential
Amendment throughout the Bill. I think that that will be the simplest way.

Mr. ELLIOT: I beg to move, in page 2, line 8, to leave out "month," and to insert "of the twenty-four consecutive months."
Queston, "That the word 'month' stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out "twenty-four" and to insert "twelve."
This is a question to which I referred on the Second Reading of the Bill. I am very glad that my right hon. Friend has come to the assistance of the milk industry in what is a very severe emergency, and is making this advance, but it is an advance which has to be repaid if the price of milk products rises more than one penny above what is fixed as the standard price. As I said on the Second Reading of the Bill, I feel that a more effective method, and one which would have a more permanent effect than this temporary advance, would be the exclusion of butter which is largely responsible for the tremendous fall in the price of butter in recent years. I sent figures to my right hon. Friend, which I worked out month by month for the last two and a-half years from the Board of Trade returns, giving the average price at which butter had come in from the different importing countries, the Dominions and foreign countries, and he must have observed that whereas in 1928–29 the price of Russian butter was much the same as the price of Australian butter—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Noble Lady is arguing that the period of the advance should be 12 months and not 24 months. I cannot see that the imports of Russian butter would be affected by that.

Duchess of ATHOLL: My argument is, that if we make this advance, which has to be repaid if butter rises above a certain price, the industry will tend to stabilise the price just below the price at which repayment has to be made. That is human nature and we have to
take account of it, whereas, if I am accurate in saying that these imports have a serious effect upon prices, then if we exclude them we shall be able to get a much more substantial price for butter and one that will be more permanent and will not entail an advance. I believe that is the best way to deal with the matter, and I do not want to see the Minister, in the generosity of his heart, imposing for a longer period than is necessary this system of giving an advance, because the advance will have to be repaid if prices rise above a certain level, which would mean a future burden on the industry. Moreover, fear of that eventuality will have the effect of keeping the price at a certain level, which will prevent the industry from getting a rise to the full extent. Therefore I suggest that the price-cutting factor should be excluded.
When I mentioned this matter the other day the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland was not able to give me a reply, but he has now given me a written reply, and I do not think it is satisfactory. He personally dismisses the proposal by saying that the quantity of butter coming in from Russia is too small to have any effect. That is the argument advanced by hon. Members opposite. It is possible to make that argument on the surface, but the point has been put to me repeatedly by people in the trade that even a small quantity of butter coming on to the market at a cut-throat price does have an extremely disorganising effect. Although Russian butter imports into this country are not nearly so great as the imports from Australia, New Zealand or Denmark, Russia is the fourth largest supplier of butter. She is a much bigger supplier than she was a few years ago. In 1928 the imports from Russia amounted to 300,000 cwt. and last year the total was 500,000 cwt. In the first three or four months of this year the imports had grown four times compared with the corresponding months of 1932. The cut in price is not 1s. or 2s. but from 20s. to 40s. a cwt., and the price goes lower and lower.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I do not think that this argument arises on the Amendment. The Amendment is to cut down the period of the subsidy to one year. I do not think the question of Russian butter arises on that.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I have moved that the period during which the advance may be made should be limited to one year in order that we may not have these restrictive imports affecting butter prices in this country. By limiting the period of the advance it will lessen the burden that will have to be met under certain circumstances, a burden which those concerned will find it extremely difficult to bear. My desire is to restrict the imports which are keeping down butter prices.

9.11 p.m.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: I support the Amendment moved by the Noble Lady but for very different reasons from those which she has advanced. On the Second Heading of the Bill I made some reference to the speech of the Noble Lady. While I do not wish to enter into a discussion on the merits of butter from Russia, Denmark or elsewhere I would remind the Noble Lady that, despite the four-fold increase of imports of Russian butter this year as compared with a previous year, for the first four months of this year there was only 1 lb. of butter imported from Russia against 40 lbs. from elsewhere. It may be that a small quantity imported from anywhere has an effect upon prices. If so, why not the imports from New Zealand or Denmark or anywhere else? It seems to me that a comparatively small amount of imports of butter from any one country can have little or no effect on the dairying industry of this country.
Our reasons are very different from those of the Noble Lady. We are anxious to limit this so-called advance to 12 months, not because we are anxious that the Government should impose fresh duties upon imported butter—already those who consume butter in this country are paying a duty of three halfpence on the imported butter from foreign countries, and three halfpence a lb. is a considerable sum for poor families—but because, and it can be demonstrated by facts and figures over and over again, if, as the result of artificial restriction of any kind, you force the price of butter up to a certain point you will not only not achieve the result you are seeking but you will deny a very large number of people of the privilege of buying butter. The consumption of butter will be reduced to an abnormally low level, because of the use of butter substitutes,
and that will not help the dairying industry. We are anxious to restrict this proposal to advance £1,750,000 for two years, to one year. First of all, we think the problem is not so much to help manufacturing milk as to increase the consumption of fresh, pure, liquid milk. The longer we advance funds for the purpose of subsidising milk so long shall we ignore the real problem which is facing the dairying industry in this country.
It is proposed to advance £1,750,000 during the first year; during the second year the amount is an unknown quantity. We believe that if advances are made for two years the Department will not attempt to provide an alternative solution by an increase in the consumption of liquid milk. Unless we can increase the consumption of liquid milk, far in advance of the present consumption, this temporary policy will leave us, at the end of two years, exactly where we are today. If we restrict the subsidy to 12 months the Department and the Milk Board will be obliged to provide an alternative policy for the consumption of surplus milk. We have suggested in previous Debates that opportunities exist for feeding school children and nursing mothers, but however the consumption is increased the only possible way of providing a lasting solution for this problem is by increasing the consumption of milk. During the 10 months which will be at his disposal and during which nearly £2,000,000 will be advanced, an alternative policy ought to be produced, the Ministry and the Milk Board should be able to settle down and find a way of increasing consumption. The longer we delay the production of such a scheme so long shall we hesitate to apply a settled policy to this country. We have also to remove the fears and anxieties which exist in some quarters in regard to the purity of our milk supplies and make it worth while for people to transfer their affections from beer to milk, or from any other liquid commodity.
The Committee will be generous to the dairy industry if it sets apart a sum of £1,750,000 for 10 months and at the same time invites the industry to organise a scheme whereby they can facilitate and increase the consumption of milk in our elementary schools. The board have almost unlimited power. They can cut down their distribution costs. They can
organise a scheme to supply elementary schools with milk for consumption at absolutely the minimum cost of distribution. I do not propose to give the right hon. Gentleman the details of such a scheme, but the Committee is entitled, when £2,000,000 of the taxpayers' money is being handed over to a section of the agricultural industry, to expect that something will be done in return. A two years' policy is bad, because it will not inspire the industry to do for itself what it really ought to do. We are also in fear and trembling that the result of a subsidy for two years will mean a greater rather than a less output, and will, therefore, mean a larger instead of a smaller surplus. The right hon. Gentleman has never hinted up to the moment at what he expects will happen in the next two years, and I hope he will tell us what he thinks the position will be at the end of that time. The taxpayer will have been responsible for £3,000,000 or £4,000,000, and as this is an advance, perhaps a gift, it is highly speculative as to whether any repayments will be made, we are entitled to know what is likely to happen at the end of two years. Does the right hon. Gentleman expect to be able to produce a policy, a bigger policy. Unless he can assure us on this point we shall be obliged to support the Amendment.

9.21 p.m.

Sir B. PETO: I desire to submit in a few words the reasons why I support the Amendment of my Noble Friend. At first blush it might seem strange that hon. Members on this side should be proposing a limitation on the generosity proposed by the Minister of Agriculture to find a certain amount of public money for 24 consecutive months so far as manufacturing milk is concerned. I do not think this is a subsidy for manufacturing milk, that is not a proper statement of the case. The subsidy is to reduce the levy which people who supply liquid milk have to pay, therefore, it is a subsidy for the encouragement of liquid milk, and without some such measure the supply of liquid milk, which the hon. Member for the Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) desires to see supplied in much larger quantities to school-children, would be liable to dry up altogether. What we want to get at is the particular reason for the 24 months. It is fairly clear that the period for this loan subsidy comes to an end in 24 months
when the Ottawa Agreements relating to the importation of milk products from the Dominions will be reconsidered, and when a fresh scheme based on a restriction of Dominion imports can be substituted for a scheme of a Government loan subsidy.
The reason I support a reduction of the period to 12 months is this. There are measures which the Government are free to take now which will not impinge on the markets for Dominion dairy products, and which, if put into force, would obviate the necessity of finding public money for a period of more than 12 months. I do not want to go into any details which you, Sir, have ruled out of order with regard to importation from any one country or another. Suffice it to say that, broadly speaking, we have imports from foreign countries in regard to which in most cases we are completely free. In the case of the imports from Soviet 'Russia we have special liberty under our Trade Agreement to cut them off' altogether if we so choose. These imports, particularly those from Soviet Russia, are the imports which are injuring the dairy industry. I do not wish to put that in any more detail or to incur the slightest risk of your calling me to order. It is necessary to say that, because, from the fact of our being supporters of this Amendment at all, we do not want to limit the support that the Government shall give to the dairy industry, but we wish to suggest that the loan subsidy has to be repaid by the industry itself as early as possible. If in the next 24 months we arrive at any period of increased prosperity at all, we do not wish it to be nipped in the bud. That would be the very worst method that could possibly be adopted. The loan is justified as a temporary expedient. I should like to see it limited to 12 months, because the Government have other methods open to them, namely, dealing with imports of dairy products which are causing distress to the industry in this country.
With regard to the arguments put forward by the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams), I am convinced that if he wants more and cheaper liquid milk he must recognise the fact that the dairy industry must be made profitable. If he wants cleaner milk, it is a costly thing to provide; if he wants the herds cleaned up, it has to be done by the people who own the herds, and so he
must secure that the milk consumption from those herds shall provide a reasonably profitable market. Otherwise, any scheme that is tried will be bound to fail. I cannot, therefore, go very far with the hon. Member in his reasons. I want the Minister to consider seriously that 12 months is long enough to arrive at some practical proposals that will not cause the taxpayer even a probable expense, but will bring a certain problematical amount of revenue into the country, not from Import Duties but from an increase in the output of the industries themselves. You cannot collect Income Tax unless the people of this country can make an income. Therefore, any measure calculated to increase the prosperity of the dairy industry should be made not at the expense of the taxpayer or by anything that will cause a reduction of the money brought into the Revenue. Considering the many problems with which he has to deal in connection with agriculture, 12 months will give the Minister long enough not only to turn round but to find a better method than is proposed by this Bill.

9.29 p.m.

Captain HEILGERS: The hon. Baronet said that the Measure was only justified as a temporary expedient, and he therefore wishes to make it only for one year. If, however, it is a temporary expedient to cover the position to-day, it must go on as long as the Ottawa Agreements continue as at present, and as long as we feel the effects of those Agreements. There is a glut of butter and cheese at very cheap prices coming into this country to-day as a result of the Ottawa Agreements, and it is probably quite right that the people in the towns should get cheap food in that way. I have no grumble against that. So long, however, as they are getting it and getting an unfair advantage at the expense of the producer, then the producer should get the compensating advantage that he is getting under this proposal, and for at least two years.

9.31 p.m.

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: I suppose that it would be possible to take the steps that the hon. Baronet suggests within 12 months, and from that point of view I suppose that he is justified in supporting the Amendment. No one, however, who appreciates the international
position of this country conceives that the hon. Baronet's suggestion for cutting down these supplies wholesale is a practical proposition. I therefore pass to the reasons offered by the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams). I share the desire to have more effective measures provided for increasing the consumption of liquid milk, but I do not see how that can be done within 12 months, and I take the view that at least two years is necessary. Nevertheless, in supporting the Minister against this Amendment, I wish to impress upon him the feeling that is common in many parts of the country and is shared by a great many of us who are supporting him, that more effective steps ought to be taken to increase the sale of liquid milk. I know that there is to be a grant of £500,000 for publicity, but my information from a very authoritative source, is that the whole of that half-million will be spent on the penny per child for increased school consumption.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member had better raise that point when we reach the Clause dealing with it.

Mr. STEWART: Other hon. Members have been explaining their reasons for supporting one or other of the two Amendments. I was trying to do the same, but I certainly bow to your ruling.

9.33 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: I am sure that we must all admire the ingenuity with which my hon. Friends in all parts of the Committee have advanced arguments dealing with, I will not say all the countries from China to Peru, but certainly with a very wide geographical and an even wider economic range. I should like the Committee to come back to the simple problem of whether this assistance should be given for one year or two years. I would impress upon my hon. Friends in all parts of the House that nothing raises more enthusiasm among hon. Members than the suggestion of planning in the abstract, but that nothing is more certain to bring down on us their condemnation than planning in the concrete. Does anybody suggest that the steps necessary to alter the full incidence of milk consumption in this country can be put through in twelve calendar months, or that the great change over from one source of supply to the other can be accomplished during that time?
My hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) did me the honour of saying that within less than twelve months I could certainly work out a scheme. I have devoted myself to this problem for considerably more than twelve months, and here is a scheme. I have studied the relation of foreign to Dominion supplies and the bearing of both of them on the food consumption of the people of this country, and the bearing of low prices of food on the level of consumption—these things have been my daily care for a long time past. I assure the hon. Member that it is not possible within the next twelve months to work out a scheme for a regulated supply unless by persuasion. Persuasion has been tried to the utmost, and the Dominion countries, which we can only persuade and argue with and not compel, have not found it possible to come within any such scheme.
Therefore, we have to deal with the facts as we find them. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, we are not able to deal with those facts which we have, until the expiration of 24 months, and it is for that reason that the proposals run for that period. Less than that will not do for the objects desired by my hon. Friends on this side. As for the objects desired by my hon. Friends opposite, I am sure that they themselves would be the first to realise that you could not in 12 months carry out the wide and sweeping schemes which they have in view. The Milk Board is only in its infancy, and it is facing a number of tremendous problems. It is impossible to prophesy that the conditions in 12 months will be so simple and satisfactory that it will get rid of all its problems. When I propose two years, my only fear is that it will be too short a time in which to grapple with these tremendous problems, but I am willing to stand upon and defend the theory of two years.

Sir S. CRIPPS: You can come back again.

Mr. ELLIOT: I assure my hon. and learned Friend that annual Votes have a much better chance of being repeated in the House of Commons than Votes which have to be reviewed at the end of a period longer than one year. An annual Vote is simply a subsidy without any more ado.

Sir S. CRIPPS: Why not then have it for one year?

Mr. ELLIOT: An annual Vote continually renewed is most difficult to interrupt. It is much easier to review a Vote where the period is such a period as two years, and there is much more chance of bringing it to an end. I would beg of the Committee not to halve the assistance which we propose to bring to the industry. The conditions which affect the industry now will affect the industry until the end of 24 months, and I ask the Committee to approve of that period.

9.40 p.m.

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: The right hon. Gentleman struggled manfully to reach common ground with us but I submit that he has failed. Although he claims that he has fallen in with the desires of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) in regard to the planning of industry, he has failed to reveal even the promise of a plan in the Bill before the Committee. He has frankly asked the Committee to give this industry a subsidy. It is a kind of dole which the Minister is supporting here and the Noble Lady opposite complains because it is to be taken out of the taxpayers' pockets.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I did not refer to the taxpayer. I was raising the point that if these products rose above a certain price repayment would have to be made and it would result in an additional levy on the producers of liquid milk.

Mr. GRENFELL: Our complaint is that the Minister is not bringing forward a plan for making the agricultural industry prosperous on its own footing. He is asking us to extend a subsidy over a period of two years and he has indicated that he may come back again for a further subsidy for another two years. There is no indication in the Bill or in what has been said by the Minister that he is getting down to a definite plan for the reconstruction of the milk industry.

Mr. ELLIOT: Is it not the contention of the hon. Member for Don Valley that unless the consumption of liquid milk is expanded the schemes will not be successful? In this Bill we are proposing
plans, running up to four years in one case, for expanding the consumption, and I do not think it quite fair of the hon. Member when he has the Bill and these plans before him, to say that I am bringing forward no plan at all.

Mr. GRENFELL: The Bill starts with this temporising proposal. If the Minister says that he is coming directly on to proposals for encouraging and increasing the consumption of liquid milk we shall express our view on that part of his plan in due course, but this is a proposal intended to satisfy the farming population until the Ottawa Agreements come to an end. It is, openly, a sop to the farmers and has no reconstructive element in it at all. It is simply to keep them quiet until the Minister decides what he is going to do after the Ottawa Agreements expire. But is he satisfied that when the agreements expire he will not be bound up again by similar conditions which will require further obligations to be undertaken by the Government which he represents? We would much prefer that the Minister should take his courage in both hands in dealing with this so-called surplus production. There is really no surplus production, but there is considerable under-consumption of milk. That is the disease which the right hon. Gentleman has to remedy, and until he finds a remedy for it he will simply be paying out money, collected unwillingly from the taxpayers, to the farmers in the form of a subsidy or a bribe to carry on the industry.

The House of Commons would be ready to support the Government, if the Government said they were prepared to encourage the consumption of liquid milk. There may be a few people who would resent the idea that milk should be given to the children, but I think they are very few. The conscience of the country has been thoroughly roused on this question. As regards this Amendment, 12 months is a long time in the right hon. Gentleman's political life. His death-sentence as a Minister may be decreed and carried out before 12 months have passed. We ask him to be satisfied with the 12 months which it is proposed to give him to-night, and that he should devote it to making a proper plan for the reconstruction of the industry which will add to the consumption of liquid milk and expedite the improvement of the quality of the milk. He will find that there will be no opposition on this side of the House to such bold plans. The opposition which does come from this side is only because the Minister is not, we feel, tackling this job as he ought to tackle it.

Duchess of ATHOLL: May I say that I am satisfied with the Minister's statement, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment to the Amendment.

HON. MEMBERS: No.

Question put, "That the word 'twenty-four' stand part of the proposed Amendment."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 214; Noes, 48.

Division No. 284.]
AYES.
[9.44 p.m.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Dalkeith, Earl of


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Dawson, Sir Philip


Albery, Irving James
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Dickie, John P.


Alexander, Sir William
Browne, Captain A. C.
Dixey, Arthur C. N.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Dixon, Rt. Hon. Herbert


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Drewe, Cedric


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Burnett, John George
Drummond-Wolff, H. M. C.


Apsley, Lord
Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)


Aske, Sir Robert William
Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Edge, Sir William


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Edmondson, Major Sir James


Atholl, Duchess of
Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Carver, Major William H.
Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Elmley, viscount


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Emmott, Charles E. G. C.


Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Clayton, Sir Christopher
Emrys-Evans, P. V.


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Essenhigh, Reginald Clare


Benn, Sir Arthur Shirley
Colfox, Major William Philip
Fraser, Captain Sir Ian


Bennett, Capt. Sir Ernest Nathaniel
Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir Godfrey
Fremantle, Sir Francis


Bernays, Robert
Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Fuller, Captain A. Q.


Bevan, Stuart James (Holborn)
Copeland, Ida
Ganzonl, Sir John


Blinden. James
Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton


Boothby, Robert John Graham
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Gledhill, Gilbert


Borodale, Viscount.
Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Gluckstein, Louis Halle


Boulton, W. W.
Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Crossley, A. C.
Granville, Edgar


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Culverwell, Cyril Tom
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)


Grimston, R. V.
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard


Guy, J. C. Morrison
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Scone, Lord


Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Martin, Thomas B.
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Hammersley, Samuel S.
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Hanbury, Cecil
Mayhew. Lieut.-Colonel John
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Hanley, Dennis A.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Milne, Charles
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)


Hartland, George A.
Mitchell, Harold P. (Br'tf'd & Chisw'k)
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Mitcheson, G. G.
Smith, Sir Robert (Ab'd'n & K'dine, C.


Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Moreing, Adrian C.
Smithers, Sir Waldron


Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Morris, John Patrick (Salford, N.)
Somervell, Sir Donald


Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univer'ties)
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)


Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Walter
Morrison, William Shepherd
Soper, Richard


Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Hornby, Frank
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Horsbrugh, Florence
Nicholson, Rt. Hn. W. G. (Petersf'ld)
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Howard, Tom Forrest
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Spens, William Patrick


Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Nunn, William
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
O'Connor, Terence James
Stones, James


Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
O'Donovan, Dr. William James
Storey, Samuel


Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Strauss, Edward A.


Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Palmer, Francis Noel
Summersby, Charles H.


James, Wing.-Com. A. W. H.
Patrick, Colin M.
Sutclifle, Harold


Jamieson, Douglas
Peake, Captain Osbert
Templeton, William P.


Joel, Dudley J. Barnato
Pearson, William G.
Thompson, Sir Luke


Johnston, J. W. (Clackmannan)
Petherick, M.
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)


Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Tree, Ronald


Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Pike, Cecil F.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Ker, J. Campbell
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Purbrick, R.
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Pybus, Sir Percy John
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Knox, Sir Alfred
Radford, E. A.
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Wills. Wilfrid D.


Leech, Dr. J. W.
Ramsbotham, Herwald
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Lewis, Oswald
Ramsden, Sir Eugene
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Liddall, Walter S.
Reid, David D. (County Down)
Windsor-Clive. Lieut.-Colonel George


Lindsay, Noel Ker
Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Wise, Alfred R.


Llewellin, Major John J.
Rickards, George William
Womersley, Sir Walter


Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander
Ropner, Colonel L.
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Lyons, Abraham Montagu
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Wragg, Herbert


MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'oaks)


MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.



McCorquodale, M. S.
Runge, Norah Cecil
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)
Captain Austin Hudson and Major


MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
George Davies.


McKie, John Hamilton
Salt, Edward W.



NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Dyke
Grundy, Thomas W.
Mander, Geoffrey le M.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Milner, Major James


Allen, William (Stoke-on-Trent)
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Ztl'nd)
Owen, Major Goronwy


Batey, Joseph
Holdsworth, Herbert
Pickering, Ernest H.


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Janner, Barnett
Rea, Walter Russell


Cape, Thomas
Jenkins, Sir William
Roberts, Aled (Wrexham)


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merloneth)
Tinker, John Joseph


Edwards, Charles
Kirkwood, David
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)
Lawson, John James
White, Henry Graham


Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)
Leonard, William
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick
Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)


Gardner, Benjamin Walter
Logan, David Gilbert
Wilmot, John


George, Megan A. Lloyd (Anglesea)
Lunn, William
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)



Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Mainwaring, William Henry
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Griffiths, George A. (Yorks, W. Riding)
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Mr. John and Mr. G. Macdonald.

Proposed words there inserted:

9.52 p.m.

Captain CROOKSHANK: I beg to move, in page 2, line 19, after "Parliament," to insert:
not exceeding five hundred thousand pounds in each year.
I admit at once that it is a very vulnerable Amendment, because I have no means of knowing that that is the figure
which should properly be inserted, but also I know that the Minister does not know either, because on an earlier stage of the Bill he said that it was almost impossible to make any estimate. For all that, I think, in passing a Measure of this kind, we ought to insert some figure. I do not mind if it is a little more than the right hon. Gentleman thinks to-day may be necessary, so long as we do not give the Government a completely blank
cheque, which is what we are doing. I am rather shocked at the Minister of Agriculture coming down first with a Money Resolution and then with the Bill itself and not inserting a figure. Some two years ago he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and there he always had the most careful concern for the most meticulous management of the national finances, and now he appears to have become a classic example of gamekeeper turned poacher. I have looked at what he said in an earlier Debate, and we have some sort of figure, because on the Committee stage of the Financial Resolution, when dealing with the figures of the guarantee, he said:
The expenditure in the first year should not exceed £1,000,000; but as there are two unknown factors it has been thought prudent to budget for a maximum expenditure of £1,500,000 to £1,750,000. As to the second year, I do not think it is necessary to make a forecast now."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st May, 1934; col. 3S0, Vol. 290.]
I must say that those are rather startling words to come from the Front Bench of a Government whose prime function, after all, was to restore our national finances, but I will take my right hon. Friend one step further in what he said himself:
It has been thought prudent to budget for a maximum expenditure of £1,500,000 to £1,750,000.
Where is the budgeting? There is no figure inserted in the Bill and there is no figure in the Money Resolution, and yet he talks of budgeting for a maximum expenditure. I am shocked when he goes on to say that it is not necessary to make a forecast now. He might have said it was difficult or impossible or impracticable or unwise, but surely it is always necessary to try and know how much any scheme is likely within reasonable limits to cost. I see that there is another Amendment on the Paper which puts the maximum sum at £4,000,000. That figure, I take it, is what has been gathered from remarks made from time to time from the Front Bench. We all admit the extraordinary difficulty of giving an accurate figure. It stands to reason when you are dealing with a problem of this kind, but I beg the Committee to bear also in mind that in the Second Reading Debate the Minister said this when dealing with the first Clause:
The Minister for this purpose is a composite body consisting of myself and the Secretary of State for Scotland acting together, with the approval of the Treasury.
There is no danger of the two of us getting into a corner and writing out enormous cheques on the Treasury without consent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th June, 1934; col. 1128, Vol. 290.]
That, again, is rather a dangerous line to adopt because it would seem from that that the function of the Treasury is to be a spending department, and that is the one thing which this House is always trying to prevent. The Treasury is supposed to be in control of expenditure, and is surely not to be consulted in this way on the actual spending. Its job is to check the actual amount of expenditure, and I do not think that can be considered a complete safeguard. I do not think the case needs very much development because it stands quite obviously in the form of the Amendment. I do not stick to £500,000 at all. I hope the Minister will not answer on the point of the amount.
I want him to try and put in some figure so that if the figure is likely to be exceeded, at any rate in the second year, there should be an opportunity for Parliamentary discussion. We have had schemes of assistance before. The wheat scheme was one of the most successful because that set a maximum, and while it is not a charge on Exchequer funds, the public at large know the maximum amount which can be diverted into the fund. The sugar beet subsidy, on the other hand, did not have any sort of maximum, and while I should be the last to criticise the beneficial effects of that policy as a whole, coming from the part of England that I do, yet I am certain that if we had known when the scheme was first passed what we knew to-day, it would never have been passed in the form in which it was, because there was that possibility of an almost unlimited expansion, which may or may not have been a good thing from the grower's point of view, but which, from the point of view of the taxpayer, was one of the contributory causes of the crash with which this Parliament is called upon to deal.
Therefore, I beg the right hon. Gentleman to try and devise some figure. I put in £500,000 because it sounded a good figure. I do not think it is necessarily right, but I want the right hon. Gentleman to say that there will be a maximum. Otherwise, there is, as was pointed out in earlier Debates, the great risk of more
and more production instead of a check. As I understand, the general object of this policy is to try and abolish surpluses and gluts. It is quite possible that it might be found difficult not to increase production under these various schemes. Therefore, I do press the right hon. Gentleman to cast his mind back to the sort of feelings he would have had two years ago when he was at the Treasury if the then Minister had proposed a scheme of this kind, and try and blend the caution which he used to show with the imagination which he is exercising to the great advantage of the agricultural industry to-day. I ask him to combine with that the caution which is not only the characteristic of his own race, but of the school in which he was trained in the other Department over which he presided with such success. I ask him to be very careful before he or anybody else on the Front Government Bench asks the House to pass a blank cheque.

10.1 p.m.

Sir F. ACLAND: As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) has not emphasised the particular figure he names as constituting the point of his Amendment, but rather the principle which underlies it, namely, that the House should not vote blank cheques, I shall save time by speaking to his Amendment and not moving my Amendment—in page 2, line 24, at the end, to add:
Provided that such payments, together with any payments made under Sections two and three of this Act, shall not in the aggregate exceed the sum of four million pounds.
I do, of course, attach a little importance to the figure. My figure is arrived at by doubling the £1,750,000, which is one of the more precise figures which the Minister has used, and given him a margin of £500,000. I attach a great deal of importance, and I believe many Members of the House do, to there being some limitation in the Bill and some figure named. It does not mean that that should be the final figure, but it does mean that, if the Minister sees that the computation he has made is likely to result in the figure being exceeded, he would have to come back to the House. I think from the point of view of any Chancellor of the Exchequer that is the businesslike way of dealing with these
subsidies. The Minister ought to be able to calculate a figure. He knows what the figure for April has already been. I asked him to give that figure, but he has not seen his way to give it. It must already have been calculated, and that figure might give some guidance of what the figure for the rest of the year is likely to be. At any rate, the principle of limitation of subsidy is surely a good thing, and if we gave him the maximum he has named with a margin that ought to satisfy anybody.

10.3 p.m.

Major HILLS: It seems to me that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) forgets that we are in a crisis in the milk business, and in a crisis we have to give a free hand to somebody. I sincerely hope the Minister will not accept the Amendment. It is not a case of saying, "You shall spend so much money and no more." The real fact is that we have to save the milk industry, and if we subsidise the price of manufacturing milk it is known that that affects the price of liquid milk; and unless that price can be underpinned and upheld by the higher price for manufacturing milk, there will be no milk problem at all to talk about. The condition is far more serious than the right hon. Member for North Cornwall appears to realise, and I hope the Minister will not agree to any' limitation of the amount to be spent.

10.5 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: I have been appealed to by my hon. Friends on both sides of the Committee for a more precise figure. I will try to give the basis of my calculation. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crook-shank) said that I ought to be able to give some sort of figure, so I will give him the statistical basis upon which I am working. Roughly it is this: Assuming that 180 million gallons of milk qualify for the advance, two-thirds of which come in the summer period and one-third in the winter period, the sum required, on the basis of the present cheese price of 3½d., is about £1,000,000. It is, therefore, clear that the suggested figure of £500,000 would be inadequate. But I agree that my hon. and gallant Friend said that he was not wedded to
his figure. He said "Put in some figure." That request was repeated by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland), who wished to give a global figure for the two years. Let me give this further calculation. If the cheese price fell to 2½d. the amount required would be over £2,000,000. The cheese price would have to go to over 4½d. before the provision of £500,000 would suffice. It is very difficult to forecast the course of the cheese market. It has, especially for a period of two years, oscillated very widely in the past, and it may oscillate again in future.
If I put in a high figure it would be blazoned all over the country that the House of Commons had voted £5,000,000 for the relief of the milk industry, and if that £5,000,000 were not expended there would be a feeling of betrayal in the minds of the dairy farmers. I cannot imagine anyone who would spend more time in denouncing us than my ton. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) if the amount spent was only £4,999,999. We are working under the terms of the Financial Resolution, which decided upon a guarantee of 5d. in the summer and 6d. in the winter. Unless we put in so high a figure that there is no possibility of it being reached, we are going against the previous decision of this House on the Money Resolution. If we put in a figure so high we, firstly, stultify a decision which would come to mean nothing, and in the dairy industry we raise hopes which will not be fulfilled. Therefore I hope that it will not be necessary for my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough or my right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall, to press this principle to a Division. A limitation had already been conceded, in the limited price, the price of 5d. in the summer and 6d. in the winter. In the later stages of the Bill there are no limitations as to price but as to global sums. I hope that with that explanation it will be possible for my hon. and gallant Friend not to press the Amendment, with whose principle as an ex-Financial Secretary to the Treasury I heartily sympathise.

10.11 p.m.

Sir S. CRIPPS: I can appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's difficulty. When you start giving wholesale subsidies to private enterprise, of course people are
always apt to accuse you of not giving them as much as they expect. I rejoiced in the pleasant interchange between the right hon. Gentleman and his Scottish friends about the odd threepence. But I do not agree with the proposition that it is impossible in a Bill of this sort to lay down some kind of limitation. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Major Hills) suggested that this was a sort of period of crisis, and I can understand that in a period of crisis any Government may want, and should be entitled to get, and future Governments may want and will be entitled to have, a free hand. As regards matters of this sort we shall look to the right hon. Gentleman to see that the hand is free. This, however, is not a question of crisis but of planning. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he has to look ahead and plan for at least two years, but so far a the question of the quantity of excess is concerned what is he planning? Is he planning to reduce his surplus by keeping the same quantity of production but getting more liquid milk consumed, in which case the 180,000,000 gallons will be reduced, or is he planning to increase his milk production so as always to have a surplus of 180,000,000 gallons for manufacture? I have not heard anything from the right hon. Gentleman as to what his plan is regarding the quantity of milk to he produced.
It is very important, when we are considering the amount of money, to insert some figure, because otherwise we run the risk that every amount by which the liquid milk consumption is increased will mean a total increase in production. I shall be interested to hear whether he contemplates, as in the figure he has given us of 180,000,000 gallons going on for two years, that the extra liquid milk that he hopes to be consumed under the other parts of his programme are coming from extra and fresh production, or whether they are to be a transference from what is at present manufactured to liquid milk. We do not believe in this subsidy on manufactured milk, and as this is a convenient way of voting on a reduction of the subsidy to £500,000, we shall certainly support the Amendment.

10.14 p.m.

Mr. R. T. EVANS: We think it is desirable to place some limit on the amount of subsidy which will be pro-
vided, but I quite appreciate the difficulty of the Minister in assessing that figure, because there are so many incalculable factors. I would remind the House, however, of a case which illustrates the importance of the point we have been trying to make. I have been reading the account of the Debate on the subvention to the coal industry in 1925, when the Prime Minister of the day asked for sanction for a subvention of £10,000,000. In the Debate which followed the introduction of that Resolution exactly the same kind of objection was raised as has been put forward today, or perhaps it was a demurrer rather than an objection. The whole thing was left more or less in the air. It was estimated that £10,000,000 would be required to put the coal industry on its feet, and the House, I think with some reluctance, accepted the figure of £10,000,000, but the conditions were somewhat undefined and in the upshot that £10,000,000 grew to £26,000,000. Though we on these benches have put down an Amendment to limit the amount to £4,000,000, we appreciate fully, as I have said, the difficulties which arise from the existence of so many incalculable factors; but while representing an agricultural constituency and very anxious that stability should be introduced, I appreciate that it is no use launching a scheme of this kind without some sort of certainty as to the future. I appreciate the difficulties of defining a limit, but I would warn the Committee of the situation which arose in connection with the coal subvention.

10.17 p.m.

Mr. OSWALD LEWIS: I regret that the Minister has not seen his way to put a definite figure in the Bill, but having regard to the explanation he has given us I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough

(Captain Crookshank) will not press his Amendment. Although I do not agree with the complete argument put forward by the Minister he has shown that he is alive to the necessity for control and that there are, in fact, some limits to the expenditure.

Mr. McKIE: I only rise because the Minister inadvertently heard a somewhat muttered interjection on my part in regard to this point. I think he suggested that if there were any limit put upon the sum mentioned in the Bill we should have all the dairy farmers in Britain up in arms to-morrow against the Board of Agriculture.

Mr. ELLIOT: I very much regret that my hon. Friend has not fully appreciated my point. If there was any muttering, possibly it was on my part, but I said that if we voted a considerable sum and did not spend it, all the dairy industry would be against us, and that if we inserted a limitation the dairy industry would again be against us.

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: On a point of Order. May I ask, Sir Dennis, if you propose to call the last Amendment. In page 2, line 24, at the end, to add:
Provided that such payments, together with any payments made under Sections two and three of this Act, shall not in the aggregate exceed the sum of four million pounds.
I do not wish an opportunity to debate it, but we should like to vote on it. This Amendment does seem impracticable; but the one at the bottom of the Paper we should like to divide upon.

The CHAIRMAN (Sir Dennis Herbert): I took the trouble to make some inquiries beforehand, and it is not my intention at the moment to select that Amendment.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 45; Noes, 207.

Division No. 285.]
AYES.
[10.19 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Dyke
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Kirkwood, David


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Lawson, John James


Allen, William (Stoke-on-Trent)
Griffiths, George A. (Yorks, W. Riding)
Leonard, William


Attlee, Clement Richard
Grundy, Thomas W.
Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick


Batey, Joseph
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Logan, David Gilbert


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Ztl'nd)
Lunn, William


Cape, Thomas
Harris, Sir Percy
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Holdsworth, Herbert
Mainwaring, William Henry


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Janner, Barnett
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Jenkins, Sir William
Milner, Major James


Edwards, Charles
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Pickering, Ernest H.


Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merloneth)
Rea, Walter Russell


Gardner, Benjamin Walter
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Tinker, John Joseph
Williams, Thomas (York., Don Valley)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


White, Henry Graham
Wilmot, John
Mr. John and Mr. Groves.


Williams, David (Swansea, East)
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)



NOES.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Gledhill, Gilbert
Palmer, Francis Noel


Alexander, Sir William
Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Patrick, Colin M.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Goff, Sir Park
Peake, Captain Osbert


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Goldie, Noel B.
Pearson, William G.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Perkins, Walter R. D.


Apsley, Lord
Granville, Edgar
Petherick, M.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Grimston, R. V.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Pike, Cecil F.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Guy, J. C. Morrison
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Procter, Major Henry Adam


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Hammersley, Samuel S.
Pybus, Sir Percy John


Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Hanbury, Cecil
Radford, E. A.


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Hanley, Dennis A.
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Bennett, Capt. Sir Ernest Nathaniel
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Bernays, Robert
Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Ramsbotham, Herwald


Bevan, Stuart James (Holborn)
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Ramsden, Sir Eugene


Blindell, James
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Reid, David D. (County Down)


Borodale, Viscount
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Walter
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Boulton, W. W.
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Renwick, Major Gustav A.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Rickards, George William


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Ropner, Colonel L.


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Howard, Tom Forrest
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Brass, Captain Sir William
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Ross, Ronald D.


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'ld., Hexham)
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newb'y)
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Runge, Norah Cecil


Browne, Captain A. C.
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Burghley, Lord
James, Wing.-Com. A. W. H.
Salt, Edward W.


Burnett, John George
Jamieson, Douglas
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Scone, Lord


Campbell. Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Ker, J. Campbell
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Carver, Major William H.
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Clayton, Sir Christopher
Lewis, Oswald
Smith, Sir Robert (Ab'd'n & K'dine, C.)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Liddall, Walter S.
Somervell, Sir Donald


Colfox, Major William Philip
Lindsay, Noel Ker
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)


Colville. Lieut.-Colonel J.
Llewellin, Major John J
Soper, Richard


Conant, R. J. E.
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Cook, Thomas A.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Copeland, Ida
Lyons, Abraham Montagu
Spens, William Patrick


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Croom-Johnson, R. P.
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Stones, James


Crossley, A. C.
McCorquodale, M. S.
Storey, Samuel


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
McKie, John Hamilton
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Culverwell, Cyril Tom
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Sutcliffe, Harold


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. C. C.
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Templeton, William P.


Dawson, Sir Philip
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Thompson, Sir Luke


Dickie, John P.
Martin, Thomas B.
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)


Dixon, Rt. Hon. Herbert
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Tree, Ronald


Drewe, Cedric
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Drummond-Wolff, H. M. C.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Milne, Charles
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Edge, Sir William
Mitchell, Harold P. (Br'tf'd & Chisw'k)
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Edmondson, Major Sir James
Mitcheson, G. G.
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Moreing, Adrian C.
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Morris, John Patrick (Salford, N.)
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Elliston, captain George Sampson
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univer'ties)
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Elmley, Viscount
Morrison, William Shephard
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Wise, Alfred R.


Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Womersley, Sir Walter


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)
Wragg, Herbert


Fraser, Captain Sir Ian
Nicholson, Rt. Hn. W. G. (Petersf'ld)
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noaks)


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid



Fuller, Captain A. G.
Nunn, William
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Ganzonl, Sir John
O'Donovan, Dr. William James
Maior George Davies and Commander Southby.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. OSWALD LEWIS: I beg to move, in page 2, line 24, at the end, to add:
Provided that if the total quantity of such milk produced during the twelve
months ending the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, exceeds the total quantity of such milk produced during the twelve months ending the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, the amount per gallon paid to
the board shall be proportionately reduced, so that the total sum paid in respect of such milk produced during the twelve months ending the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, shall not exceed the total sum paid in respect of such milk produced during the twelve months ending the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-five.
The Minister, by refusing the Amendment moved by the Noble Lady the Member for West Perth (Duchess of Atholl), is insisting on getting these advances for two years; and, by resisting the Amendment moved by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank), and the suggestion of the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland), he has refused to put any definite figure in the Bill limiting the liability of the taxpayer with regard to these advances. I submit that these two circumstances, taken together, strengthen the case for this Amendment, the effect of which would be that, in the second year for which advances are to be provided, the amount actually found in the first year may not be exceeded.
It has already been pointed out, and, indeed, it was frankly stated in the Memorandum on the Financial Resolution, that an accurate forecast could not be given of the liability in the second year, and we were reminded this evening that the Minister himself, in the Debate on the Financial Resolution, said that he did not consider it necessary now to make a forecast of the second year's liability. It seems to me that in those circumstances a very strong case can be made out for some limit to this unknown liability in the second year, particularly because the whole policy as so far outlined by the Minister must have a tendency to increase the production of milk and that tendency, which, if it materialises, is likely to add to his difficulties in two years time, would be to some extent corrected if milk producers knew that during the second year they could not get a greater total sum than they do during the first year and, therefore, if there is an increased output the actual amount per gallon would be reduced.
There is a very good precedent for the principle involved in the Amendment in what has actually happened under the Wheat Act. The result of the operation of the Wheat Act for the period to 31st
July, 1933, showed that because of this limiting provision the deficiency payment had to be reduced. In fact, instead of getting 4s. 6.86d. the wheat producers got a wheat deficiency of 4s. 5¼d. per cwt. It is clear that that must operate as an automatic check to the tendency under present conditions to increase the production of wheat. I would urge on the Minister the desirability of some similar check against an increase in the production of milk. There may be considerable practical difficulties in the actual wording of the Amendment. I should be satisfied, if he cannot accept this exact limitation, if he will endeavour to find some alternative automatic check to increased production which would produce a similar effect. The Minister by various things that he is doing, and the House by various things that it has agreed to, is tending to increase the trouble from which we suffer of there being too much milk available. By some such check as this that tendency might be automatically got over. There is the further advantage that there will be a definite limitation to the amount that the taxpayer will have to find during the second year.

10.35 p.m.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): My hon. Friend proposes, as a limitation to the production of milk, that the amount to be paid for in the second year shall be not more than the amount produced in the first year.

Mr. LEWIS: My hon. Friend has not got that quite right. I did not suggest that the amount of milk should be limited, but that the amount of money available should be limited, and therefore the amount per gallon would be less.

Mr. SKELTON: The Amendment is based upon the fear that the policy may greatly or substantially increase the amount of money, therefore, as my hon. Friend said, tending to increase the trouble. It was said in the earlier stages of the Bill that we do not anticipate, and I think for good reasons, that these proposals will increase the amount of milk. In the first place, they are not sufficiently financially attractive to do so. They will have only a stabilising and not a stimulating effect. The analogy which my hon. Friend draws with regard to wheat is not a true analogy, because the deficiency payment was of such a
figure as seriously to detract farmers from growing wheat. We do not think that there is the same risk of increase as might have arisen under the Wheat Act. For physical reasons it is a much slower process to increase the milk supply than the wheat supply, and those reasons in combination make us feel that the risk which my hon. Friend fears is not a practical risk.
He asks that we should consider whether any provision can be made against the kind of increase which he fears. On behalf of my right hon. Friend, I would say that we will consider very carefully again whether the arguments which led us to believe that there will not be an increase in the next few years are sound, and if we have any reason to doubt the soundness of the arguments which lead us to believe that this provision will not result in an increase, we will consider whether any possible increase is likely to be of such a nature as to demand any such limitation as my hon. Friend suggests. I would say to him and to the Committee that it is not in any sense the language of the Amendment which causes us difficulty. It is the belief that, taking the whole circumstances of this particular case into account, the increase my hon. Friend fears will not take place, and for that reason I ask him not to press the Amendment further.

10.39 p.m.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Has not the Under-Secretary flown in face of all the experience since 1925 in suggesting that any guaranteed reasonable price will not produce an increase in the article? Is he aware that between 1925 and 1932 the output of milk increased by no less than 300,000,000 gallons without any guarantees at all? It might be argued that farmers in the livestock producing areas transferred to dairy farming, and various other suggestions might be advanced, but at least one thing can be advanced with certainty, and that is, that dairy farming is constantly improving in efficiency. Improved breeding, improved pasture and so forth have increased the yield per cow year by year. That is a normal and natural way of improving the yield without increasing the number of cattle. Unless the Under-Secretary can satisfy the Mover of the Amendment that the Government have definite and specific information to guide them in their calcula-
tions, we must agree that at the end of two years from now, assuming that the normal rate of improvement in yield continues, without any increase in the herd, there will be an increase in output.
I think the Government might well have accepted the Amendment, because in another part of the Measure there is some effort to increase the consumption of liquid milk. Unless some limitation is put upon the amount available for subsidy an extraordinary situation will be created at the end of two years. If the increased output does continue the law of diminishing returns would follow and during the 13th, 14th, 15th and up to the 24th month the dairy farmers would act upon the known results and output would have some relation to the known manufacturing sales and liquid demands. I think the Government ought to have accepted the Amendment, and we feel obliged to support it.

10.42 p.m.

Sir F. ACLAND: I do not want to fight this Clause right through, but I want to (make a point which I think is a good one. On the assumption that the Committee want to accept the principle underlying the first three Clauses, the case for the acceptance of the present Amendment is that the subsidy is to be varied by two factors. One factor is the amount of milk, but the major one, surely, is the cheese prices. If in the second year the cheese prices happen to be a good deal lower than in the first year, it will be unfair to farmers to say, "We will only give you the same subsidy as in the first year. As a matter of fact, your need for a subsidy may have been very small in the first year because cheese prices may not have been so low, but in the second year the need for subsidy is very much increased owing to the collapse in the cheese prices." Therefore, I suggest that the Amendment strikes at the framework of the first three Clauses of the Bill.

10.44 p.m.

Captain WATERHOUSE: When the Minister is reconsidering the matter, I hope he will bear in mind that this scheme varies in one very material way from the wheat scheme, in that the wheat scheme gives a subsidy for all wheat produced, while this only gives a subsidy to one particular category of milk, and one
which is so unprofitable to the farmer that there is no incentive to increase the production at the price. Furthermore, I hope he will bear in mind that the Milk Board already have the power to restrict production.

10.45 p.m.

Captain HEILGERS: I want to make this point in answer to the hon. Member for the Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams). It takes roughly three years before a cow can produce a calf, and I do not see why we should be anxious as to what is going to happen at the end of the second year.

Mr. OSWALD LEWIS: After the explanation of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

10.46 p.m.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon.' Gentleman explain this point? The object of the Bill is to subsidise 180,000,000 gallons of manufactured milk. In the Bill there are proposals to increase the consumption of liquid milk during the two years when we are subsidising 180,000,000 gallons of manufactured milk. If the policy is a greater consumption of liquid milk, are we to understand that that demand will be supplied by an increased output, or will it be met by drawing upon the 180,000,000 gallons? If not, are we going to increase the output of milk? I realise the point made by the hon. and gallant Member that it takes some time to increase our herds; we all know that. I think the right hon. Gentleman should tell us what are his expectations and desires in regard to the price of dairy produce, and how the 180,000,000 gallons of milk will be dealt with; whether he proposes to meet any increased demand for liquid milk by increased production.

10.48 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: I hope, in the first place, that an increased consumption of liquid milk will be drawn from the surplus of manufactured milk. That would be the desire of the Committee, including the
hon. Member for the Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams), for various reasons one being that the more manufacturing milk we can divert into liquid consumption the less will be the burden on the remaining liquid milk and there will be thus an opportunity of the whole of liquid milk coming down in price. If that happens we shall have broken the vicious spiral we are in, the low price for manufacturing milk coming in upon the other end of the balance to which liquid milk is attached.
The greater the consumption of liquid milk, the less the levy for condensed milk, for chocolates and so on, and thus you get an economic price. If we can succeed in getting an increased consumption of milk then I think we can go ahead with increased production. I hope that the increased consumption will come out of the manufacturing surplus, the industry put on an economic basis, and then we can transfer the whole to milk production.

10.50 p.m.

Sir S. CRIPPS: This is the main Clause of the Bill. In regard to what the Minister of Agriculture has said, I understand that his objective is to get rid of manufactured milk in this country, that he wants to help the cheese industry and the ancillary industries which the hon. Gentleman told us the other night were so essential for the good of the countryside and should be maintained fully in their operation. I do not know where the Ministry of Agriculture stands on this. The hon. Gentleman says that the object of the Bill is to keep cheese and other industries alive. The right hon. Gentleman gets up and says, "We hope that the present supply of milk will all go to liquid consumption and that none will go to those industries."

Mr. ELLIOT: No.

Sir S. CRIPPS: The right hon. Gentleman said that he hopes that all this milk will be drawn in to liquid milk consumption, and when it is all drawn in we shall be in a position to go forward with increase of production. If the hon. Gentleman looks in the OFFICIAL REPORT tomorrow he will find that that is exactly and precisely what the Minister said.

Mr. ELLIOT: No.

Sir S. CRIPPS: The right hon. Gentleman says "No." One is not allowed
to bet in this House, but if one were, I should not mind taking a wager that if he looks in the OFFICIAL REPORT tomorrow he will find those words.

Mr. ELLIOT: If that is so, I shall be willing to admit that I made a mistake.

Sir S. CRIPPS: Would the right hon. Gentleman correct it, then, and say what he means with regard to this?

Mr. ELLIOT: It is surely most undesirable that we should continue half-penny-chopping across the Floor of the House on this general question. I said that I hoped that an increase of consumption of liquid milk would take place, and that the increased consumption would, in the first place be drawn from the manufacturing milk in this country. I did not say that I hoped that the whole of this milk would be drawn in, because I do not think that that is economically possible, since there is a large surplus, a considerable portion of which would go into manufacture.

Sir S. CRIPPS: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for correcting me, but I think he will find that that was not what he said. What I particularly noticed him to say was that when all this milk has come into the liquid milk market, then we shall be able to go forward with increasing production, and not until that point has been reached. Now the right hon. Gentleman is contemplating what is called the summer flush; that will go into manufacture, but there will not be any excess to go into manufacture during the winter months. Therefore the objective at which we are aiming under this proposal is to reduce the amount of milk that goes into manufacture, and so reduce the amount of the subsidy that is paid under this Clause.
We object under this Clause to the whole system of subsidising manufactured milk. We believe that if milk is to be subsidised at all it should be subsidised for the purpose of liquid milk consumption and that you would in that way the better remove the milk from the cheap market which, it is said at present, is tending to undermine the price of liquid milk. The other night the right hon. Gentleman said that we could not do that, because everybody would demand that the liquid milk that they obtained should be sold at the cheaper price. We do not accept that argument, and we believe
that this is going about subsidising in the wrong way, if indeed subsidising is the right policy at all. Of course, it has this merit as against the wheat subsidy system, that in this case the subsidy falls upon the direct taxpayer and not upon the consumer, as it does in the wheat subsidy. We are grateful to that extent to the hon. Gentleman for seeing that the Income Tax and Super-tax payer will substantially provide this subsidy rather than the consumer of milk. We agree that he has discovered in that a much better principle than was incorporated in the Wheat Act.
This is an attempt to apply a system of re-distribution of national wealth by means of subsidy—by direct Government payment—which might be successful if it were operated in a Government-controlled industry, but which, operated in an industry still under private control, will lead the right hon. Gentleman into inevitable difficulties. At the end of the two years he will be forced either to go on with the subsidy or to take some other method of giving a profit to the producer. He may, of course, contemplate handing over the baby to another Government which will arise in about two years' time. Perhaps that is why he has fixed 24 months as the period for the subsidy. Perhaps he does not expect to have to face the House with regard to the next one. But it looks more like as if he were contemplating taxing Dominion imports at the end of the 24 months. No doubt that is really his policy, so that at the end of 24 months, when he has a free hand again, with the taxation of Dominion imports, he will then make the consumer pay by increasing the price of dairy produce, by creating scarcity, by keeping out Dominion produce and, in that way, attempt to get out of his subsidy. As far as we can see, he has no definite plan, unless it be that, and that seems to us an unsatisfactory solution of the problem of milk production. We believe that when all this money has been paid away in subsidy the milk industry will not be in any substantially better position than it is in at the present moment.

Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 213; Noes, 47.

Division No. 286.]
AYES.
[10.58 p.m.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Fremantle, Sir Francis
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Fuller, Captain A. G.
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.


Albery, Irving James
Ganzonl, Sir John
Palmar, Francis Noel


Allen, Lt.-Col, J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Pearson, William G.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Gledhill, Gilbert
Perkins, Walter R. D.


Apsley, Lord
Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Petherick, M.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Goff, Sir Park
Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Blist'n)


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Goldle, Noel B.
Pike, Cecil F.


Atholl, Duchess of
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Granville, Edgar
Procter, Major Henry Adam


Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Grimston, R. V.
Pybus, Sir Percy John


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Radford, E. A.


Bennett, Capt. Sir Ernest Nathaniel
Guy, J. C. Morrison
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Bernays, Robert
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Bevan, Stuart James (Holborn)
Hammersley, Samuel S.
Ramsden, Sir Eugene


Blindell, James
Hanbury, Cecil
Reid, David D. (County Down)


Borodale, Viscount
Hanley, Dennis A.
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Boulton, W. W.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Renwick, Major Gustav A.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Rickards, George William


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Ropner, Colonel L.


Bracken, Brendan
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Walter
Ross, Ronald D.


Brass, Captain Sir William
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Hore-Belisha, Leslie
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Runge, Norah Cecil


Brown, Brig,-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newb'y)
Horsbrugh, Florence
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Browne, Captain A. C.
Howard, Tom Forrest
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Salt, Edward W.


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Burghley, Lord
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard


Burnett, John George
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Scone, Lord


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Jamieson, Douglas
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Carver, Major William H.
Ker, J. Campbell
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Smith, Sir Robert (Ab'd'n & K'dine, C.)


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Somervell, Sir Donald


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton
Soper, Richard


Colfox, Major William Philip
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Liddall, Walter S.
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Conant, R. J. E.
Lindsay, Noel Ker
Spens, William Patrick


Cook, Thomas A.
Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunliffe
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Copeland, Ida
Llewellin, Major John J.
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Lloyd, Geoffrey
Stones, James


Cranborne, Viscount
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander
Storey, Samuel


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Galnsb'ro)
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Lyons, Abraham Montagu
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Crossley, A. C.
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Sutcliffe, Harold


Cruddas, Lieut-Colonel Bernard
McCorquodale, M. S.
Templeton, William P.


Culverwell, Cyril Tom
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Thompson. Sir Luke


Dalkeith, Earl of
McKie, John Hamilton
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. C. C.
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Tree, Ronald


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Dickie, John P.
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Dixon, Rt. Hon. Herbert
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)


Drewe, Cedric
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Drummond-Wolff, H. M. C.
Mayhew, Lieut,-Colonel John
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Duncan. James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Edge, Sir William
Milne, Charles
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Edmondson, Major Sir James
Mitchell, Harold P. (Br'tf'd & Chisw'k)
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Mitcheson, G. G.
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Moreing, Adrian C.
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univer'ties)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut-Colonel George


Elmley, Viscount
Morrison, William Shepherd
Wise, Alfred R.


Emmott, Charles E. G. C.
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Womersley, Sir Walter


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Wragg, Herbert


Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'oaks)


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid



Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)
Nunn, William
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Fraser, Captain Sir Ian
O'Donovan, Dt. William James
Captain Austin Hudson and Commander Southby.




NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Dyke
Cripps, Sir Stafford
Grundy, Thomas W.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)


Allen, William (Stoke-on-Trent)
Edwarde, Charles
Hamilton, Sir R. W.(Orkney & Zetl'nd)


Attlee, Clement Richard
Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)
Harris, Sir Percy


Batey, Joseph
Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Holdsworth, Herbert


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Gardner, Benjamin Walter
Janner, Barnett


Cape, Thomas
Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Jenkins, Sir William


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Griffiths, George A. (Yorks, W. Riding)
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)




Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Mainwaring, William Henry
White, Henry Graham


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Kirkwood, David
Milner, Major James
Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)


Lawson, John James
Pickering, Ernest H.
Wilmot, John


Leonard, William
Rea, Walter Russell
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzle (Banff)


Logan, David Gilbert
Roberts, Aled (Wrexham)



Lunn, William
Rothschild, James A. de
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Smith, Tom (Normanton)
Mr. John and Mr. Groves.


Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Tinker, John Joseph

CLAUSE 2.—(Exchequer payments in respect of milk used for manufacture by milk marketing boards.)

Amendment made: In page 2, line 29, leave out "such month as is mentioned in the foregoing section," and insert:
of the twenty-four consecutive months falling between the end of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, and the beginning of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-six."—(Mr. Elliot.)

Motion made, and Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 3.—(Exchequer payments in respect of milk converted into cheese at farms.)

Amendment made: In page 3, line 19, leave out from "any," to "been," in line 20, and insert:
of the twenty-four consecutive months falling between the end of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, and the beginning of April nineteen hundred and thirty-six."—(Mr. Elliot.)

11.7 p.m.

Sir F. ACLAND: I beg to move, in page 3, line 28, to leave out from the beginning to the end of line 4 on page 4.
If hon. Members will look at the proviso they will see that it reads as follows, leaving out the unimportant words:
Provided that the Minister may direct that no sums shall be payable in respect of milk which has been used by a registered producer in manufacturing cheese at a farm, unless the board satisfy the Minister that the registered producer had in his possession not less than such number of milch cows as may be specified in the order.
That means that the Minister may withdraw the subsidy for farm-produced cheese to small men with small milk herds. The Minister has never referred to this matter in any speech he has made on the Bill hitherto. He said in one of his speeches that they intended to give this subsidy to milk turned into farm-made cheese, but that they could not extend it to butter; and he never suggested that it could only be the larger farmers who would get it and not the smaller men making cheese. I do not
want any discrimination made against the smaller men. This is, of course, restricted to registered producers, and registered producers, by the time this scheme gets into working order, will be accustomed to making up their accounts and presenting their returns and so on in just as clear and honest a way as the larger men; and it seems to me that if it is possible to do the accounting and presumably the checking for the larger men, it ought to be possible for the smaller men too. I have heard no justification for the idea that the Minister may from time to time, without consulting the House, disqualify the smaller cheese producers from getting any assistance, and as I do not see any reason why the smaller men should be left out I move to omit the proviso which enables them to be left out.

11.9 p.m.

Mr. SKELTON: The point which the right hon. Gentleman raises can be briefly dealt with. There is no intention that small but consistent farm cheese makers should be excluded from the benefits of the Bill. What it is desired to provide against is administrative complication if occasional cheese makers, with a very small herd of cows, were to get this subsidy. From a purely administrative point of view, and for no other reason, it is necessary that power should be taken so that purely spasmodic conversion of milk into cheese should not attract the subsidy. There would be all the difficulties attendant on the furnishing of evidence on the subject. We have been urged on all hands to make some limitations in the Bill. Here is a limitation, and it is made for purely administrative purposes. It will not in any way prejudice the small but regular cheese producer.

11.11 p.m.

Sir F. ACLAND: Does this mean that the man who makes cheese with his summer surplus will be hit or will not be hit? This subsidy is, primarily, to deal with the difficulty caused by the summer surplus. Quite a number of people, in the
normal way, get rid of the milk, in cheese, up to a fixed quantity, but it is with the summer glut running perhaps for nearly four months that they have a difficulty. It is a normal farming operation to make cheese for four or five summer months. Is that type of man to get subsidy or not?

Mr. SKELTON: Certainly he will get the subsidy. The whole matter will be arranged with the board. It is the man who one week in the year, when he has a surplus, converts that surplus into cheese, who will not get the subsidy.

11.12 p.m.

Sir S. CRIPPS: If that is the intention of the Minister this is a most unfortunate way of putting it into the Bill. The only criterion here is the number of cows a man possesses. It does not say whether he makes cheese regularly or irregularly, or anything else. Assume that the limit of cows is five. Anyone who has five

cows, if he makes cheese only once in 10 years, will get the subsidy; but the small man who makes cheese every month during the summer, but has only four cows, will never get the subsidy. The Clause has absolutely no relation to the question whether the making of cheese is regular or not. As it stands it can only hit the small man, whether regular or irregular, and the big man, whether regular or irregular, will get the subsidy. If the Minister of Agriculture desires to carry out what has been said by the Under-Secretary for Scotland no doubt he will give an undertaking that between now and Report the words will be altered to carry out that intention. Otherwise one must vote against these words to protect the Under-Secretary from the Minister of Agriculture.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

The Commitee divided: Ayes, 177; Noes, 43.

Division No. 287.]
AYES.
[11.15 p.m.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Drewe, Cedric
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Drummond-Wolff H. M. C.
Leech, Dr. J. W.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Liddall, Walter S.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J,
Edmondson, Major Sir James
Lindsay, Noel Ker


Apsley, Lord
Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Llewellin, Major John J.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander


Astor, viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.


Atholl, Duchess of
Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Fraser, Captain Sir Ian
McCorquodale, M. S.


Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Fremantle, Sir Francis
MacDonald. Malcolm (Bassetlaw)


Bateman, A. L.
Fuller. Captain A. G.
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Ganzonl, Sir John
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.


Blindell, James
Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)


Borodale, Viscount
Gledhill, Gilbert
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John


Bossom, A. C.
Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Mitchell, Harold P.(Br'tf'd & Chisw'k)


Boulton, W. W.
Goff, Sir Park
Mitcheson, G. G.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Goldle, Noel B.
Moreing, Adrian C.


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univer'ties)


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)
Graves, Marjorie
Morrison, William Shepherd


Brown. Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newb'y)
Grimston, R. V.
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.


Browne, Captain A. C.
Guinness. Thomas L. E. B.
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. J.
Guy, J. C. Morrison
Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid


Burghley, Lord
Hammersley, Samuel S.
Nunn, William


Burnett, John George
Hanbury, Cecil
O'Donovan, Dr. William James


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Hanley, Dennis A.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.


Carver, Major William H.
Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Palmer, Francis Noel


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Pearson, William G.


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Perkins, Walter R. D.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Petherick, M


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Peto, Geoffrey K.(W'verh'ptn, Bilston)


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Pike, Cecil F.


Cook, Thomas A.
Howard, Tom Forrest
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.


Copeland, Ida
Howitt. Dr. Alfred B.
Procter, Major Henry Adam


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Hudson, Capt. A. u. M. (Hackney, N.)
Pybus, Sir Percy John


Cranborne, Viscount
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Radford, E. A.


Crookshank. Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Crossley, A. C.
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Ramsden, Sir Eugene


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
Jamieson, Douglas
Reid, David D. (County Down)


Culverwell, Cyril Tom
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Dalkeith, Earl of
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Renwick, Major Gustav A.


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. C. C.
Ker, J. Campbell
Rickards, George William


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil)
Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Ropner, Colonel L.


Dickie, John P.
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Dixon, Rt. Hon. Herbert
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Ross, Ronald D.


Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Somervell, Sir Donald
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.
Soper, Richard
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Runge, Norah Cecil
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Spencer, Captain Richard A.
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Salt, Edward W.
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)
Whyte, Jardine Ball


Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Shakespeare, Geoffrey H,
Stones, James
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Shaw, Helen S. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Storey, Samuel
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)
Stourton, Hon. John J.
Wise, Alfred R.


Skelton, Archibald Noel
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart
Wragg, Herbert


Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)
Sutcliffe, Harold



Smith. Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)
Thompson, Sir Luke
TELLERS FOR THE AYES—


Smith, Sir Robert (Ab'd'n & K'dine, C.)
Tree, Ronald
Captain Sir George Bowyer and Sir Walter Womersley.


NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Dyke
Groves, Thomas E.
McKie, John Hamilton


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Grundy, Thomas W.
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)


Attlee, Clement Richard
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Mainwaring, William Henry


Bernays, Robert
Harris, Sir Percy
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Holdsworth, Herbert
Milner, Major James


Cape, Thomas
Janner, Barnett
Roberts, Aled (Wrexham)


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Jenkins, Sir William
Scone, Lord


Colfox, Major William Philip
John, William
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Tinker, John Joseph


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Jones. Morgan (Caerphilly)
White, Henry Graham


Edwards, Charles
Lawson, John James
Williams Thomas (York. Don Valley)


Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)
Leonard, William
Wilmot, John


Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)
Logan, David Gilbert
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Gardner, Benjamin Walter
Lunn, William



Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—




Mr. Walter Rea and Mr. Rothschild.


Motion made, and Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

11.23 p.m.

Sir S. CRIPPS: I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
I do so in order to ask the Patronage Secretary how far he proposes to go to-night. In view of the fact that a large part of the time this evening has been taken up with internal discussions, we hope that the House is not to be asked to sit unduly late.

11.24 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Captain Margesson): I do not think that we need anticipate any more internal struggles this evening, and I hope that we shall have no strife across the Floor of the House either. Having had a look at the Order Paper, I think that we ought to be able to get to the end of Clause 10 without having to ask the House to sit unduly late. Clause 11 raises a large point, but the Clauses before it raise comparatively small ones. We should be able to conclude our business and get up at a reasonable time.

Question put, and negatived.

Amendment made: In page 4, line 9, leave out "next after that in which the said date falls," and insert "of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-four."—[Mr. Elliot.]

CLAUSE 4.—(Definition of "cheese-milk price" and "standard price" and certification of cheese-milk price.)

11.25 p.m.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: I beg to move, in page 4, line 13, to leave out "three farthings."

Clause 4 provides for a guaranteed payment of 5d. per gallon in the summer months and 6d. per gallon in the winter months on all manufacturing milk, but, in addition to that, there is a provision by which the price of milk may be assessed from time to time. I desire to ask the Minister whether my interpretation of these provisions is the right one, because the very involved terminology of Clause 4 is difficult for the ordinary Member to understand. I should say that the object of the Clause is to fix a price for milk for cheese-making which is to be equal to the average price of New Zealand White or Canadian White cheese over the preceding month, plus a sum of 1¾. If the figures can be presented in this way, I gather than the intention of the Clause is that, where the average price of cheese over the preceding month is 4d. per lb., the average cheese-milk price per gallon will be 4d., plus l¾d. We
suggest that, if it be the intention, when the price of cheese is 4d. per lb., always to add at least l¾d. to the current price of cheese, we shall find that in the summer, when the guaranteed price is 5d., we shall be paying ¾d. per gallon in excess of the guaranteed price, but that in the winter the price will be 5¾d. per gallon, or ¼d. per gallon less than the guaranteed price in winter. We suggest that the l¾d. is too much, and is not necessary, because it is unlikely that the price of cheese will fall to a figure which will require such an amount to make up the price to the guaranteed figure of 5d. or 6d.

We should like to hear from the Minister what is the basis of this figure of 1¾d. We are told that a gallon of milk is almost exactly equivalent to 1 lb. of cheese, and that l¾d. is to be added to the price of cheese to make up the price of a gallon of milk, because on an average it costs 1¾d. to make a pound of cheese. We do not know whether the Minister has given his authority for that figure, but we say that the Minister and the House would be well advised not to raise the price so much, and that the addition of 1¾d. is too much, because in most cases it will give an advance on the guaranteed price of 5d. or 6d., as the case may be. We ask the Minister to say whether he will not be content with a cheese-milk price of a penny in excess of the price of imported cheese, leaving the deficiency between that cheese-milk price and the standard price to be made up by the contribution provided in the Bill. Am I right in assuming that the assessment will occasionally carry the price far ahead of the guaranteed price, and in that way call for contributions from the moneys provided by Parliament, not only to make up the guaranteed price, but to give the producers a price of ½d. or ¾d. ahead of the guaranteed price?

11.31 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: This is a somewhat complicated Clause, but I will do my best to make it clear. It has been the common practice in the milk trade for years past to value manufacturing milk on the imported cheese price basis. It is true that the price of surplus milk in this country is actually fixed on the price of an imported article. The price of l¾d.
is the trade figure that is usually given. As a matter of fact, it is slightly lower than the trade figure which has been accepted for some years past. That was 2d. The figure was given as l¾d. by the appointed persons in the first contracts under the Milk Marketing Board, and it has been continued at that rate in the second contracts. The definition of cheese milk in this Clause represents what the board actually receives for milk used for cheese making. I do not think there is any danger of what the hon. Gentleman seems to fear, if I grasp his contention aright, that the formula in the Clause would drive the price of milk used in cheese making far beyond the level at which it ought to stand. This is a formula, which has been used for cheese making for a long time, and it has not had that effect in the past and it will not have it in the future. The effect of the Amendment would simply be to reduce by one half at the present cheese price the assistance that is offered by the Bill in respect of the lowest priced category of milk, that is milk used for factory cheese making and, as the Committee has argued out that contention and decided not to accept it, I hope the hon. Gentleman will not press the Amendment.

11.34 p.m.

Mr. GODFREY WILSON: I am at variance with the hon. Gentleman opposite. The Clause says that the cheese price for any month shall be the excess over l¾d. of the average price of certain imported cheeses. If I take the figure of 4d. as the average price of New Zealand cheese, then the cheese price is not 5¾d. but the difference between 4d. and l¾d.

Amendment negatived.

Amendments made: In page 4, line 20, leave out "any month" and insert "each of the six consecutive months."

In line 23, leave out "any month" and insert "each of the six consecutive months."

In line 31, leave out from "for" to "and," in line 35, and insert:
the month of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, and for each subsequent month down to and including the month of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-four.

In line 36, leave out from "of," to "and," in line 38, and insert:
of the month of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-four."—[Mr. Elliot.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

11.36 p.m.

Sir S. CRIPPS: I only want to mention to the right hon. Gentleman that there may be a misunderstanding about the meaning of these words. If one reads them again, they look as if they have two interpretations. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be good enough to look into the matter before the Report stage.

Mr. ELLIOT: I shall do my utmost to spend some time on the Clause to see whether I can make it plainer. I admit that I had to hold vigorously to my reading of it right through in case I made a hash of it myself, and, if I can make it clearer, I will do so.

CLAUSE 5.—(Payments to Exchequer in in respect of milk used in manufacturing milk products.)

Amendments made. In page 5, line 15, leave out "month," and insert "of the twenty-four consecutive months."

In line 31, leave out "month," and insert "of the twenty-four consecutive months."—[Mr. Elliot,]

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: With regard to the remaining Amendments to this Clause, every one is outside the scope of the Financial Resolution.

CLAUSE 6.—(Exchequer payments to Government of Northern Ireland in respect of milk used for manufacture.)

Amendment made: In page 7, line 9, leave out the second "in," and insert "of."—[Mr. Elliot.]

CLAUSE 7.—(Provisions for enforcing payments due to Exchequer.)

Amendments made: In page 8, line 13, leave out "month," and insert "of the twenty-four consecutive month."

In line 18, after "time," insert "being."

In line 22, after "under," insert "subsection (1) of."—[Mr. Elliot.]

CLAUSE 8.—(Provisions as to revocation of schemes.)

Amendment made: In page 10, line 23, after the second "be," insert "a,"—[Mr. Elliot.]

CLAUSE 9.—(Payments for securing pure milk supply.)

11.38 p.m.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: With regard to the first Amendment in the name of the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps)—in page 11, line 15, after "Treasury," to insert:
(including the exercise of powers conferred upon the Minister under the provisions of the Diseases of Animals Acts, 1894 to 1927)."—
I shall be glad if he will explain it to me. I am not certain what he proposes.

Sir S. CRIPPS: The purpose is to en able the moneys which are to be expended under this Clause by the Minister to be related, in accordance with the powers which he possesses under the Diseases of Animals Acts, to tuberculous herds. Unless some such words are put in, he will not have power to utilise this money for such purpose.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am not certain the Amendment is necessary. However, I will let the hon. and learned Gentleman move it to enable the Minister to reply.

11.39 p.m.

Sir S. CRIPPS: I beg to move, in page 11, line 15, after "Treasury," to insert:
(including the exercise of powers conferred upon the Minister under the provisions of the Diseases of Animals Acts, 1894 to 1927).
The object of putting down this Amendment is really to raise the question as to whether the Minister has full powers to utilise the moneys which are being provided for improving the quality of milk supplied in dealing with tuberculosis among cattle on the lines of the Diseases of Animals Acts. That is to say, we should set up an inspectorate and go in for isolation, slaughter and various other
things for dealing with all the forms of tuberculosis which occur, as if they were diseases in animals, not merely certain specified and limited forms of tuberculosis but all forms, and all cases of tuberculosis in milk. We want it to be clearly specified that the right hon. Gentleman can deal with the matter as a single authority, not merely leaving it to the county councils and other bodies who, according to the report of the Committee, have not been carrying out inspection and other duties and powers they possess, in an efficient and proper way.

11.41 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: I think we are at some cross purposes over this Clause and the Amendment put down by my hon. and learned Friend. Clause 9 places at the disposal of the Minister in England and the Secretary of State in Scotland this maximum sum, the object of which is the production of "milk for human consumption, pure and free from the infection of any disease. We intend to achieve that object by a campaign against tuberculosis in cattle, and the Clause provides that the money may be used to pay registered producers sums of money if they produce milk in conformity with prescribed conditions. This is in addition to and not in substitution for the existing powers under the Diseases of Animals Acts, 1894 to 1927, and the Tuberculosis Order, 1925. Under that Order the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, in virtue of powers vested in him under the Diseases of Animals Act, 1984 and 1925, and other powers, makes an Order that any person having in his possession any cow suffering from tuber culosis, or which appears to be suffering from tuberculosis, shall without avoidable delay give information of the fact to the local police force, and the police force then transmits the information to the local authority. Thereupon, the provisions of the Act come into force. We put an inducement before the owner of a herd to make him co-operate wholeheartedly with the authorities in this campaign of cleaning up the herds.
After consideration of the report of the Cattle Diseases Committee we came to the conclusion that the best way will be to make these small grants, because it is a well-known maxim that more flies are caught in a jar of honey than
in a hogshead of vinegar. If we can offer this inducement to the proprietors to come in with us in the campaign, we shall get a much speedier start and more rapid development than by merely relying upon compulsory Orders under the Diseases of Animals Acts. There is no intention to neglect our powers under the Diseases of Animals Acts. We intend to press them in every possible way. I am sure that we shall have a much greater development of the veterinary service under these provisions than ever before, because unless there is some veterinary inspection dairy herds will not draw the premium. Farmers themselves will demand a veterinary inspection and services, which up to now they have rather resisted because they considered it would involve them in heavy expenses without any benefit. In the future, with this benefit they will be eager to take advantage of veterinary inspection and service. We are maintaining our powers under the Diseases of Animals Acts and superimposing this additional scheme. The two working together will, we believe, mean that we shall make more rapid progress than ever before. I do not think the Amendment is necessary and I hope the hon. Member will not press it.

11.47 p.m.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: We must express our disapproval of the policy of the Government in this Clause. The right hon. Gentleman says that this policy is supplementary to any existing powers he may have. All the powers which the right hon. Gentleman has now are not being used. In county after county no inspections ever take place, and my hon. Friend tells me that the agricultural members of the Derbyshire County Council are doing their best to get the only inspector in the county dismissed. The right hon. Gentleman says that in providing a premium he will encourage the better type of farmer to strive to obtain it, but the premium he offers, if it is 1d. per gallon, will only cover 43,000,000 gallons of milk out of the 426,000,000 gallons, and if it is ½d. it will only cover 86,000,000 gallons out of 425,000,000 gallons. We do not think that the premium will do much good, or that amount of good which it might have done if he had increased the number of inspectors and organised it on a national
basis. I am sure that they would insist on isolation here and there. We think that the Minister should have more power, and that he should exercise it, instead of leaving it to county councils who steadily refuse to carry out the dictums of the right hon. Gentleman. In his pure milk policy the right hon. Gentleman has fallen short of the case. We are anxious to secure a milk supply

for more people, an increased consumption of fresh liquid milk, and this is a most important Amendment towards securing that.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 33; Noes, 171.

Division No. 288.]
AYES.
[11.51 p.m.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Holdsworth, Herbert
M liner, Major James


Cape, Thomas
Janner, Barnett
Rea, Walter Russell


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Jenkins, Sir William
Rothschild, James A. de


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Johnstone, Harcourt (S, Shields)
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Tinker, John Joseph


Edwards, Charles
Lawson, John James
White, Henry Graham


Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)


Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)
Lunn, William
Wilmot, John


Gardner, Benjamin Walter
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)



Grenfell, David Bees (Glamorgan)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Grundy, Thomas W.
Mainwaring, William Henry
Mr. John and Mr. Groves.


NOES.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Fuller, Captain A. G.
Moreing, Adrian C


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Ganzonl, Sir John
Morris, John Patrick (Salford, N.)


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)
Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univer'ties)


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Gledhill, Gilbert
Morrison, William Shephard


Apsley, Lord
Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Goff, Sir Park
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Goldie, Noel B.
Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Gower, Sir Robert
Nunn, William


Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Graves, Marjorie
O'Donovan, Dr. William James


Bateman, A. L.
Grimston, R. V.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.,
Pearson, William G.


Bossom, A. C.
Guy, J. C. Morrison
Perkins, Walter R. D.


Boulton, W. W.
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Petherick, M.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Hanbury, Cecil
Peto, Geoffrey K.(W'verh'pt'n, Bilston)


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Hanley, Dennis A.
Pike, Cecil F.


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.


Brown, Col. D. c. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)
Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Procter, Major Henry Adam


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newb'y)
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Pybus, Sir Percy John


Browne, Captain A. C.
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Radford, E. A.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Horsbrugh, Florence
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Burghley, Lord
Howard, Tom Forrest
Ramsden, Sir Eugene


Burnett, John George
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Held, William Allan (Derby)


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Rickards, George William


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hunter, Capt. M- J. (Brigg)
Ropner, Colonel L.


Carver, Major William H.
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Jamieson, Douglas
Ruggies-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Runge, Norah Cecil


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Colfox, Major William Philip
Ker, J. Campbell
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Cook, Thomas A.
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Salt, Edward W.


Copeland, Ida
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Cranborne, Viscount
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton
Scone, Lord


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Crossley, A. C.
Liddall, Walter S.
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
Lindsay, Noel Ker
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Dalkeith, Earl of
Llewellin, Major John J.
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwlch)


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. C. C.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Mabane, William
Smith, Sir Robert (Ab'd'n & K'dlne, C.)


Dickie, John P.
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Somervell, Sir Donald


Dixon, Rt. Hon. Herbert
McCorquodale, M. S.
Soper, Richard


Drewe, Cedric
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Drummond-Wolff, H. M. C.
McKie, John Hamilton
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
McLean, Dr. W H. (Tradeston)
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Edmondson, Major Sir James
Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Stanley Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Stones, James


Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Storey, Samuel


Estenhigh, Reginald Clara
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Mitchell, Harold P.(Br'tf'd & Chisw'k)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Sutcliffe, Harold
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)
Wise, Alfred R.


Thompson, Sir Luke
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)
Wragg, Herbert


Todd, Capt. A. J. K. (B'wick-on-T.)
Whyte, Jardine Ball



Tree, Ronald
Wills, Wilfrid D.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)
Captain Austin Hudson and Sir


Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)
Walter Womersley.


Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 10.—(Amendment of 12 & 13 Geo. 5. c. 54.)

11.58 p.m.

Brigadier-General CLIFTON BROWN: I beg to move, in page 12, line 27, to leave out "(including conditions as to the payment of fees)."
I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health for being in his place because it is largely for the purpose of bringing this question of fees to the notice of the Ministry of Health that I move the Amendment. One of the chief grievances of those engaged in the production of the better classes of milk is that they are called upon to pay big fees in connection with milk licences, whereas those who produce the ordinary milk pay no fees at all. The Minister of Agriculture has remarked on the importance in connection with these schemes of the help and co-operation of those who are being catered for by them and in that connection I think consideration should be given to the anomaly that the Ministry of Health regulations impose these fees on the people who are producing the real good article which everybody wants, while those who are not producing that higher grade of articles are not required to pay any licence fees. It is in order to raise this point and in the hope that the iniquitous procedure to which I have referred, will not be perpetuated in any new regulations which the Minister of Health may make under this Clause that I move the Amendment. I would add that under the new suggestions in the report of the Diseases of Animals Committee, which no doubt will be followed more or less in these regulations, a sum of £750,000 is being provided and many additional veterinary surgeons and inspectors will be available and therefore it should be less necessary in the future than it has been in the past to collect big fees from the people who provide the better milk. All dairies will be inspected and will have to keep up to the standard for which they are licensed. I should like an assurance that the en-
couragement of clean milk will not be hampered, as it is at present, by these licences which the Minister of Health may put on, after consultation with the Minister of Agriculture. It is not the way to encourage the small farmer to produce clean milk and it has stopped thousands of small farmers from doing so. I hope that, attention having been drawn to the matter by this Amendment, the Minister will give an assurance that the point will be considered in connection with any regulations which he may make.

12.2 a.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: I am indebted to my hon. and gallant Friend for raising this question. I think it is true that these fees are felt to be some hardship by certain producers. The reason for requiring payment of fees is obvious. It is that the licensing authorities are involved in special expenses for the inspection of farms and other establishments for purposes of bacteriological examination, which are not incurred in the case of unlicensed milk. The licensees do get some financial advantage from being able to sell milk under the statutory licence, and it is considered only reasonable that they should bear some part of the special cost of the licensing scheme. At present the fees prescribed range from 5s. a year for a retail shop to £5 a year for a farm producing certified milk. I should be prepared to discuss the question of fees with the representatives of the local authorities, the milk producers, and the distributors, when the revised Order is prepared and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health concurs in that pledge. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health is here and is ready to speak, if necessary, on the point, but I hope that, having received the assurance that we are willing to discuss this question round the table with the local authorities, the producers and the distributors when preparing the revised Order, my hon. and gallant Friend will feel that he has gained the point which he wished to make by this Amendment.

Brigadier-General BROWN: As I said, I am glad that the Ministry of Health is represented here, and I take the oppor-
tunity of saying that I hope the Departments will not overlap as they are doing. The milk authorities in the country at present very often overlap in their different inspections of the farms. In view of what has been said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again," put, and agreed to.—[Captain Margesson.]

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

STATUTORY SALARIES (RESTORATION) BILL.

Read the Third time, and passed.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Wednesday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Ten Minutes after Twelve o'Clock.